It’s suppose to have 50% more range, better manueverability, a better kill mechanism, and a dual-pulse motor.

I saw one article that mentioned a 100% range increase over the earlier variant.

What gives you that idea ?
Every fighter can out turn every missile, even a B 747 can out turn a missile, the only difference is how much energy a given missile have to lose for each aircraft to out turn, or how unfavourable the conditions was at launch. (ex. over the shoulder shots are doomed to fail even against 747’s)
It takes alot of air on the tiny fins of a missile for it to turn 5 g more then a fighter.
At high altitude there is little air to begin with, at low altitude the missile will slow down to harmless well within WVR.
Long range missiles has poor agility because of high weight and small fins, it’s the speed that makes it pull high g’s, but the speed and thus the g’s drop off rapidly, and is never reached in the first instance if launched at subsonic speed.

Let me rephrase that- no fighter is going to out turn(I’m not speaking of the turn radius) a missile that hasn’t exhausted its energy. If the missile is already at the point that you’re describing, then the difference of pulling 9gs vs. 9.5gs is going to be negligible. The point I was responding to was that the assertion that the F-35 was a sitting duck, in terms of evasion, while another fighter with nominal improvements in agility, would survive.

Thank, wrightwing. Was there any definition set for threshold between LO and VLO? As a start, even something from L-M would be better than nothing.

Typically the VLO threshold would be somewhere between .01m^2 and .001m^2. Aircraft like the Typhoon, Rafale, Super Hornet, Gripen NG would fall somewhere reduced RCS to LO, with RCS of <1m^2 to .1m^2.

I have written “According to what is being written these days…”. I don’t pretend knowing the exact RCS except some claims which suggest that it won’t be on the same level as F-22.

Why question my IQ, then?

No one is arguing that it won’t be on the same level as the F-22. The point being made is that the F-22’s RCS isn’t the threshold for being considered VLO. They’re both all aspect VLO aircraft, and the F-22 has the better RCS of the 2.

I didn’t said anything about “operational” or ready.
But certainly developed.

Developed as in likely to be fielded anytime soon, or on paper?

I for one would well believe it as I think the F-35 is an absolute turkey, another Thunderchief. The only difference from the Thud is that the JSF pilot will have perfect situational awareness of the missile that s/he cannot out maneuver and it kills her/him.

A- no modern fighter is going to out turn a missile.
B- what’s the basis for comparison with the F-105? The F-35A(which will be the far most numerous model) is a 9g aircraft, with better performance than the F-16 or F-18, VLO, and has high SA.
C- later block models will have NGJ, DIRCM, EA, etc… combined with VLO.

PS. It is also interesting which Version of the R77 was taken. Cause the new ones outclass the Meteor.

And which of these R77 variants that outclass the Meteor(or AIM-120D) are operational?:rolleyes: