Yes is DOES mean all of this Scorpion.

Rafale (all versions) is designed around a Maximum Structural Load way above the international standard and this is actually WHY it can sustain higher g loads and still meet its 7.000 hours service life.

Compare the IS of 1.6 to the actual 1.85 design point and you will understand what i mean, this standard mean 9 g design point + %age above it, ground tested until critical failure occurs in aerodynamic stress conditions, at 11.0g there is still a 0.5 g margin before the maximum is reached.

AdA is SHORT in aircraft they wouldn’t allow for this sort of “folies” to occur if they didn’t know they were designed for the purpose and the airframe wasn’t capable of taking it.

End of debate.

All Rafales in operation I have seen in real world and on the spotters photographs and other imagery carried external drop tanks. How are they going to pull 11 g on a regulare base if ET are carried during almost all missions they fly? And how can Rafale pilots take such high g-loads on a regular base? It might well be that the pilot received a special clearance for that display. And bursting at 185% load stress is one thing, lasting for designed service life at higher loads than design for another thing. Even if it does, I still doubt the “routinely” claim on the other grounds mentioned.

Rafale does it with two AAMs routinely what makes you so sure it won’t do it with FOUR?

Are Rafales routinely pulling 11 g? I can’t imagine that. I know it’s possible, but I don’t expect french pilots being super humans taking higher g-loads than other on a routine base. I don’t see any extraordinary about crew protection either and F-16s with similar protection measures crashed a lot at only 9 g due G-LOC! So do you have anything substantial to prove the “routinely” claim? I also wonder how they are doing it when they virtually every fly with 1 to 2 ETs.

I am not aware of an AAM seeker with such a wide PoW.

Maybe wwe misunderstand us here, I speak about the coverage of the seeker. It has to sweep around and can sweep to such angles, like a mechanically scanned radar does, it doesn’t do so at one time.

The BWR AAMs (appart for MICA and perhaps some Russian AAMs) are not designed for HOB, Off Boresigh at best.

That’s untrue IRIS-T, ASRAAM and virtually every other modern SRAAM, such as the V-3A or Python 4/V are all designed for HOB operations.

Edit:
Did you mean BVR? If yes then you are correct. But we spoke about SRAAMs before.

How are the pilot eyes going to cue the AAM itself?

Not the pilot’s eyes are cueing the missile the HMS does depending on the pilot’s direction of view.

This is not how it works technicaly, you need to have an onborad sensor to cue with the HMS, detect the target is 3D, then this sensor will cue your AAM.

Of course it would be better to detect a target in 3-D, but it’s not a must. It’s like with an IR-seeker detecting the target in 2-D and the missile is launched and still find its way to the target. If launched to early it might come short and miss.

EODAS is only one of four on-board sensors used to develop situational awareness (APG-81, EOTS, ASQ-239 and EODAS). The data from all sensors within the flight is shared per the mission plan. For example, a flight of 4 F-35s in a mutually supporting formation (many miles separation between each airplane), has 4 radars, 4 EOTSs, 4 ESM suites and 4 EODAS suites to provide a picture of the battlespace over a front that covers a couple hundred miles.

ASQ-239 is the RWR/ESM system or the entire EWS?

NG is a paper plane at this point. (A “demonstrator” is no more an NG than the EAP was a Typhoon.) As for how the F-35 would out class it, well, bigger payload, better survivability, and greater lethality come to mind.

Gripen Demo isn’t more a paper plane than the F-35. Yes there is only one test example, but the Gripen is a proven airframe in service since 13 years. Gripen NG offers some new stuff that’s it. There is certainly a good deal of work to be done before the type can be fielded, more importantly it has yet to be ordered at all. EAP was a pure tech demonstrator developed from scratch, not based on an existing operational aircraft.

Early MBDA stament for that matter, they also said it was only “representative” of the potential of HMDS, not that it was done with the HMDS system.

Can this early statment be found somewhere?

That’s ONLY theorical and in the case you haven’t go any friendly in the same volume of air.

Next stage, you need to be able to ID/FF and mid-course guide your AAM or you can forget about using them in a fureball, you’re just as likely to kill a friendly in LOAL mode than your intended target.

The ASRAAM launch was actually a LOAL shot. So by that measure it isn’t theoretical, albeit I agree that identification can be an issue, particularly in a crowded environment.

ID capabilities for IIR seekers are under development and might settle that ID issue however. MCG is definitely desirable, but not a must.

Find me an ASRAAM AAM seeker giving you 90* both side off boresight. 😀

ASRAAM, IRIS-T & AIM-9X to mention some.

That is what MBDA states:

For close-in combat the aircraft sensors can give target positional data to the missile beyond the seeker off-bore sight limits of +/- 90 degrees. This now gives the pilot the capability to fire an “over-the-shoulder” shot in the “lock after launch” mode. In this scenario, the pilot can locate targets behind the aircraft using, for example, the Helmet Mounted Display (HMD). In this case the missile will launch and fly into the vector provided by the HMD, the seeker then acquires the target, engages and destroys it.

http://www.mbda-systems.com/mbda/site/ref/scripts/siteFO_contenu.php?lang=EN&noeu_id=121&page_id=23

That’s the nice, theorical version of reality.

It actually is possible and that’s how every LOAL shot is done in the first place, target coordinates are assigned to the missile’s INU prior launch. That’s actually the way AMRAAMs, MICAs or R-77s can work as well, albeit at longer range the pk is small. MCG is usually used to achieve a higher pk.

Not today no, this is why it is still not fully operational, this 360*X360* detection/cueing/refresh capabilty is still in the labs.

Well no one states 360° x 360°, but beyond the seekers FOV.

NOPE, just in case you didn’t know, it was a world FIRST and was only achieved with an angle marginaly off the wing line, the difference was it wasn’t remote targeting.

Welcome back to reality.

Where was it stated that it was just marginally behind the wing line? So far all missiles were launched by their seeker and thereby launched at targets not greater off axis than 90°. With LOAL the missile can be launched beyond its seekers acquisition envelope and therefore behind the aircraft. That’s what is likely to be meant with behind the wing line. As long as you can visually see the target, you just need to launch the missile in this direction. At such short ranges reaction time is short and the target won’t move by far at all. It’s certainly not the most accurate way to do it, but it is possible.