An update on the R-27P.
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Date Posted: 28-Apr-2004
JANE’S DEFENCE WEEKLY – MAY 05, 2004
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Russia releases passive ‘Alamo’ for export
Robert Hewson Editor, Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons
London
The Russian authorities have made a significant shift in their arms export policies by approving foreign sales of the Vympel R-27P air-to-air missile (AAM). The R-27P (Pasivnaya) is fitted with Avtomatika’s 9B-1032 (PRGS-27) anti-radiation seeker, which homes in on other airborne radars. It is one of three basic versions of the R-27 (AA-10 ‘Alamo’) developed in the early 1980s.
Until now the R-27P has been fielded only by the Russian, and probably Ukrainian, air forces. It is part of the baseline weapon set for the MiG-29 and Su-27/Su-30 fighter families. Despite several reports to the contrary, Russia has not yet supplied the R-27P to foreign users. During the recent FIDAE 2004 exhibition in Santiago, Vympel confirmed to JDW that it has now been given permission to offer the R-27P on the export market for the first time.
Despite its age, the R-27P is a radical and effective beyond-visual-range (BVR) air-to-air weapon with no Western parallels. For decades, Soviet (now Russian) missile engineers have produced passive BVR AAMs that allowed their fighters to make undetected stealthy missile attacks. There is already an infra-red-guided version of the weapon – the R-27T – and the R-27P is an extension of this capability.
The R-27P’s seeker was designed to be modular and interchangeable with the RVV-AE/R-77 (AA-12 ‘Adder’) active-radar AAM. Vympel’s designers discovered that the R-27E (Energitisheskaya) variant, the so-called ‘Long Alamo’ with its larger rocket motor, had superior ballistic performance to the R-77 and, therefore, more straight-line range. As a result, an R-27EP has been developed, but there is no passive R-77 yet. Export versions of the R-27P variants are designated R-27P1 and R-27EP1.
According to Vympel, the R-27P’s 9B-1032 seeker has an effective range of 200km: this significantly outreaches the 110km maximum range of the R-27E missile. Vympel is considering further improvements to the missile design but says it will still not match the capability of the seeker. The preferred solution would be a ramjet-powered R-77. Such a concept has been studied and the basic missile design was tested in the late 1980s, but since then there has been no funding to take this weapon further.
* At FIDAE the team behind the Sukhoi/KnAAPO Su-35 bid for Brazil’s F-X BR requirement announced that it would seek to build Russian AAMs, such as the R-27, in Brazil with the aim of providing missiles for the Brazilian Air Force. The team says it hopes to integrate these missiles on Western-built combat aircraft in South America.
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