USA would rather wage war on Canada than see it fly EF.

No, if the RCAF choose the EF, that would not amount to a declaration of war, probably would amount to the closure of the USA Embassy and the imposition of economic sanctions, on the other if they went for the “French Fries” Rafale, the 101 would be landing in Otawa 15 minutes after the news got out…

I´ll get me coat 😀

What do you call this then?

Sounds subsonic or at least slower than mach 4/6.

Its called an hypersonic glide flight, the typical parabolical BVR shot, just much bigger than what you would find in a AIM-120.

Yes, the RBS15Mk IV is a bit premature. Still, it has gone from 70 to 250 km of range from MkI to MkIII. And that is easier to do with subsonic missiles with jet/turbo engines.

Not particulary, there are a multitude of long range supersonic/hypersonic weapons in smaller body´s than something like an RBS15, but they dont have to carry such a big explosive warhead, or such a big radar seeker. Size doesnt necessarily means range, and the type of engine that is chosen depends on a multitude of variants, not only range.

Depends on how you measure range. Its not like the AMRAAM falls out of the sky at max range. But with aerodynamics being similar (but with higher relative drag for the CUDA), using the same fuel and similar flight patterns there will be a difference.

Undoutebly, but i wasnt comparing it with the AMRAAM, i was comparing with the “9X”.

The R37 shows this in a great way by more than doubling the range simply by changing flight profile.

Exactly, a direct shot will cut the range by comparison with a parabolic one. Another great example is the AIM120C5 and the AIM120D, they use the exact same engine and its aerodynamics are exactly identical, but the second has more range, why? Flight profile.

Typo, i meant R-77 and R-77M1.

I see, the “UFO” of the AAM world, the one that was shown in mockup in 1993, never to be seen again.
Has of today whats on public domain about a “Ramjet R77″ is entirely speculative. By the litle that was disclosed in the late nineties, beggining of the 2000´s, the original project is probably dead or transformed itself into something diferent (that doesnt mean that Vympel abandoned the Ramjet route, i wouldnt be too surprised if someday the Russians show a ramjet R-77 again, but that weapon will have gone a transformation after the original R-77″Meteoriski” development got “freezed” in the nineties).

Does that missile have a booster?

No. The one with a (roughly, bit bigger) similar sized body but with a booster is Rafael Stunner used on “David Slings” a much longer range interceptor.
The Israeli´s are on something, they got that kind of range, on such a small body and amazingly, in an interceptor weighting 198 lbs they have stuck 24 lbs of explosives…

For a KE killer speed is key. So the CUDA has to be a lot faster than the target to make a good impact and maneuver at the same time while the AIM9x only has to get close enough to get the charge off, it can do this without being much faster than the target.

Having one missile that needs higher speed, that has to do more maneuvering will have an impact on the range vs the counterparts that can fly slower and do less maneuvering.

I dont know if it has to maneuver “more”, but it must fly faster indeed, the “9X” is not a particularly fast weapon.

Most of the performance gains comes from more efficient use of the fuel and flight profiles today, the solid fuel itself is pretty much the same. That is why the biggest range increases comes from adding either boosters or changing to ramjets.

Agree. My theory is that a combination of speed and a lofted flight profile could indeed send that CUDA into the BVR world and if thats the original idea of LM (i dont know if it is, i am speculating around the choice of a radar seeker and mid mounted lift wings) this CUDA is something of a “half MICA” not a smaller “9X”.
But i can be wrong…

ps – That Tamir interceptor has “something”, i dont know what, but it has “something”

Cheers

I think it might be good not to compare super and subsonic missiles to get the data. The R37 for instance gets a longer range (up to 398km!) by simply changing the mission profile to a subsonic one, the JSM is a mix of rocket and turbojet engine and could possibly reach the same ranges as the RBS 15 (70km in Mk I, 250km in Mk III and possibly 1000km in Mk IV according to wiki).

Subsonic R37? RBS15 MKIV?!

The Vympel R-37M is a mach 4/5/6 long range AAM and its the first time that i´ve seen someone claiming that it has a subsonic flight profile!! A subsonic log range AAM, that kinda defeats the entire concept doesnt it?!
The 1000 km´s RBS15 is nothing more than company studies.

So flight profile has a lot to do with the performance. And when it comes to propellants both the AIM9 and the AIM120 use AP/APCP with HTBP as binder (and fuel) and most likely Aluminum as primary fuel. And that goes for most other missiles as well.

I dont believe we will see any radical changes to the propellant, it will still have similar performance and will probably even still be HTPB/AP/fuel based. I mean, we still use AP as the main oxidizer (anno 1940s), Aluminum as the primary fuel (used since…?) and the only new thing is HTPB (anno 1960s).

You dont need to focus on the propelant to explain interesting gains in range, on the other hand if we look at flight profiles, aerodynamic characteristics and internal arrangement…
Look at what Matra did with the MICA in 1991. Or what Rafael is doing today with the Tamir.
The “9X” measures 3,075 meters, weights 85.45 kg´s and with a diameter of 13 cm, the MICA measures 3,100 meters, weights 112 kg´s and has a diamater of 16 cm, they are not much diferent in terms of size, but the French AAM in the past has blown to pieces drones that were 64 km´s away from the initial shooting point, this almost triples the “9X” range.
Matra did this with lifting devices along the AAM body and with flight profile. If we think of this “CUDA” in the lines of “half a MICA”… I wouldnt be too surprised if this concept outranged the “9X”.

MBDA and Vympel looked the other way when it came to performance increases, they made the missiles with ramjets instead, in the case of R27 it doubled the range compared to the solid fuel engine.

EH?! Ramjet R-27?!!!!!

My belief is that solid fuel rocket engines are what they are and that the biggest increases comes from changing burn rates, top speed, aerodynamics and flight profiles.

Completely agree.

Maybe someone will figure out something astonishing but thats for the future to tell.

For the future? No, we could see stunning things in Istres by 1991, and by the way, we are seeing stunning things today all over Israel.
The Israelis are shooting a 90 kg´s, 3 meters long SAM from the ground to targets 70 km´s away (and they are trying to expand its range to 200 km´s!)… That interceptor matches the 9X size perfectly…
If the French and the Isreali´s can do these things there´s no reason why LM cant do the same.

For simple air policing 4-6 jets Be they MiG29/Rafale/Gripen/EF/J10 or even JF17… they will all do just fine and you dont even need long range AAMs. .

4-6 jets?
For air policing an air space 24 hours/7days a week/all year round plus training, maintenance, etc?

Forget it, even one complete sqn will be very hard pressed for maintaining that kind of capability, even for a small airspace like Serbia. Look at how many jets the Austrian, the Swiss, the Bulgarians, the Portuguese, and any other small European nation fields to do QRA, you wont find anything less than a complete 12 airframes SQN, the alternative is doing an “Albanian/Lituanian/Latvian/Lethonian”.

Profit by creating the problem, then profit some more by solving it. Brilliant. :p

On top of that, if the “problem” takes a bucket load of extra years to enter service, profit by upgrading whatever system the “problem” was meant to replace…
I´ll bet that Captain John Yossarian after getting out of the USAF ended up working has a consultor for whoever created the “problem” concept!

Probably for the Saudi’s, they can’t get the Rafael Litening pod already integrated on the Typhoon for obvious reasons, they have also had Damocles installed on their Tornado so I suppose there is a synergy in doing the same for their Typhoon.

Interestingly they have purchased Sniper for their F-15S.

Undoutebly for the Saudis, they have recently signed a contract with Thales for a few dozen Damocles.

Has anyone any more to add on this smaller AAM for the F22/F35- designed to fit on an SDB rack….?

http://theaviationist.com/2012/11/30/cuda/#.UL4mlO-IqBo

I think its safe to assume that right now the only information on the public domain, consists of “its a small, radar guided hitile, meant to be carried in numbers in the internal bay´s of the Raptor and JSF”. And thats it (plus a handful of mockup photos).
What i dont get, is “why in the sweet name of John Cleese” did LM choose a radar seeker? :confused:
Hell, wasnt LO/VLO RCS be the “end all be all” of aerospace warfare for the next two decades? And LM chose a radar seeker for a conceptual next generation AAM?!
Confused… I would imagine that they would go for something passive (IIR?) backed up by data links, or some pretty mad mixture of active and passive systems, but no; they went for radar!
RADAR?!!!
Curiously, MBDA went the same route with CAAM!
Am i the only chap that thinks this is a bit odd?

Only for prototypes. Series examples will have a non-afterburned version of SNECMA M88.

Its a possibility but its too soon to tell what a “Son of Neuron” will look like, or be powered by what.

Cheers