I admit, I initially thought the same.. but then the old source from hopsy started to talk about tripling the volume of space, which kinda puts the whole thing into a very different perspective..

Needless to say, the Meteor is currently the best thing out there, at least that is what everybody agrees upon (incl. myself). Now, let’s see what the PL-15, PL-21 or RVV-BD bring on the table..

Yeah, that does confuse the issue. It could simply be that the relationship between 1D dimensions and volume temporarily escaped the thought of the writer. Certainly a 43% range improvement would not be a lot to shout about.

Digging up old RAF weapons booklets (with some dubious figures), they have been stating the same 20+nm for the AIM-120 from 2003 to the present day. So clearly someone has been copying and pasting (and thinks the current RAF AMRAAM is the B:highly_amused:) but this figure is not the more commonly stated range, so it may be an NEZ. The Meteor’s range is presently classified by the RAF, with the only evidence being a statement of a test conducted at ‘well in excess of 100km’ against a manoeuvring target. So that would suggest more like 3 times NEZ radius and the MBDA slide seems to work on range rather than volume too, as well as defense-update referring to kinematic performance.

https://www.raf.mod.uk/rafcms/mediafiles/0186cc2a_1143_ec82_2ef2bffff37857da.pdf
https://www.raf.mod.uk/rafcms/mediafiles/E28BE76F_5056_A318_A833EB4C9A735AD8.pdf
https://www.raf.mod.uk/equipment/amraam.cfm
http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/defense/2012-07-08/theres-no-escaping-mbdas-meteor-missile

But head-on NEZ is difficult to define because if the target suddenly turns and runs then it’s no longer frontal aspect. It also gets difficult because initial assumptions on range goals were likely based on an AIM-120B-sized control section, which probably used bulky late 1980s electronics subsequently reducing the size of the propulsion section and fuel fraction, whereas the Meteor itself probably uses early 2000s electronics, which are significantly smaller and lighter and it was indeed mid-90s electronics that allowed a larger propulsion section on the AIM-120C-5 and a 40% range improvement there. After that guidance section changes allowed significantly more out-right range still, although how they apply to NEZ, I don’t know.

http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-120.html

The AIM-120C-5 is a C-4 with a slightly larger motor in the new WPU-16/B propulsion section and a new shorter WCU-28/B control section with compressed electronics and ECCM upgrades.

I guess if we took two known missiles of similar size, one rocket, one ramjet, that should give us an idea. So taking the HAWK and Sea Dart, 3 times range seems to be ball park.

I was making a general point, most of what the Royal Family say doesn’t come directly from them.

But when you have headlines like this, naturally the government may respond, and that’s not a bad thing really.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/20/mental-health-royal-family-government-children-illness

On mental health, the royal family is doing more than our government

Theresa May is basing her entire shoddy and content-free election strategy on her new willingness to shout at foreigners. Ryan, have you not heard her ‘bloody difficult’ statement?

Oh, and out of those three, the answer is probably the Marxist. But we weren’t discussing the ideologies of leaders, I thought we were talking about the ‘voting public’ who’s beliefs and prejudices they hope to both guide and then apparently reflect.

She had no alternative given that the EU started asking for ridiculous sums of money whilst also refusing to discuss a trade deal. They forced her to present that stance in front of the public. I’m also highly curious as to what makes up this £100bn. The current MFF lasts until 2020, we leave in 2019 and we only pay £10.8bn/year, or at least that’s what we’ve been lead to believe. But the £100bn figure makes it look like the EU has been taking more than that.

Yes, Marxism has worked wonders throughout the world, hasn’t it?

She knows how to look like she’s dealing with it for a month or so, to people who think ‘being difficult’ is a negotiation technique in itself.

..the socially unevolved, perhaps.

Is asking for what you want whilst refusing to consider what someone else wants a negotiating technique? Because that’s been the EU’s technique so far.

Oh nice. The public-issue-free royal family unusually highlight mental health issues and a week later the only election pledge from the manefesto-free tories is more money for mental health.

Why have the news organisations not remarked on this remarkable coincidence?

You do know that The Queen’s speech isn’t actually written by The Queen right?

Ryan/Lukos etc

It may be that nobody else cares, I’m not sure I do either.

I don’t want you banned, but your split personality posting is the same every time you turn up, and it’s reeeally boring. You start off with little surreptitious posts which gradually spread across threads. You then get involved in arguements in this tedious back and forth over an issue most contributors are not in discussion over, drawing in the knowledgeable ones who pick you up on the glib assumptions you make.

And then, every now an then we are forced to endure this uncivil aggressive personality whose use of language is slack, and who teeters on the brink of being offensive.

It makes the entire forum a far less interesting place to be.

Third post that’s nothing to do with aviation.

It’s takes two to argue. I am not the only party in this case, nor the only person making the same argument. Statements about the potential range of a ramjet AAM in 1996 are invalid wrt the present day. And the source in question pre-dates the existence of Meteor and even the beginning of its development contract. They were still debating which ramjet technologies to use at that point. It also mentions the R-27ER in the same paragraph, so it’s not even clear which missile’s range can potentially be tripled by using a ramjet technology that hasn’t been selected.

The solid rocket AAMs have doubled in range during the same time period due to factors that fundamentally impact on ramjet AAM range also (lighter/smaller electronics, better guidance). E.g. the 1996 document says a range of ‘about 100km’, which has actually ended up as ‘well in excess of 100km’ in testing. So that’s clearly indicative of a moving picture. And the general fact to note is that VFDRs have an NEZ 3 times that of a single pulse solid rocket head on and 5 times in tail chase. So if you change the electronics and guidance to improve range in one, the same is possible with the other.

I believe my case is well supported.

2008 – Defense-Update
http://www.defense-update.com/newscast/0308/news/news2103_meteor.htm

According to MBDA, Meteor has three to six times the kinematic performance of current air/air missiles of its type.

2014 – Combat Aircraft
http://s25.postimg.org/4qw3vyzov/going_digital_pg_3.jpg

Meteor has a no escape zone 3 times greater than the AMRAAM it will replace

2014 – MBDA Farnborough

https://mbdainc.com/farnborough-air-show-preview-mbdas-meteor-cruise-missiles/

AGAINST AN AGILE, EVADING TARGET, METEOR’S NO-ESCAPE ZONE—THE AREA WITHIN WHICH, IF A MISSILE IS LAUNCHED, THE TARGET CANNOT KINEMATICALLY AVOID BEING HIT—IS THREE TIMES LARGER THAN THAT OF A CONVENTIONAL SINGLE-PULSE ROCKET WEAPON IN A HEAD-ON ENGAGEMENT, AND FIVE TIMES LARGER IN A TAIL-CHASE.

2016 – MBDA

2016 – SAAB

http://saab.com/globalassets/cision/documents/2016/20160711-gripen-leads-the-world-with-new-operational-capabilities-en-1-1170592.pdf

unrivalled no escape zone (three times greater than any current BVR missile)

SAAB was using C-7 at this date.

AMRAAM AIM-120C-5 entered service in 2000.

http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-120.html

http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/…F0001%22;rec=0

That it is safe to assume they are talking about the PAK FA and J-20, because those are supposed to be operable by 2020, right? It is clear LM are being cautious with their wording but obviously if they make a statement like this it must mean in most scenarios the F-35 gets at least a 6:1 exchange ratio when out-numbered 2:1 by PAK FAs and J-20s.

Or maybe you will suddenly remember your skeptical side…

False equivalence. In 2014, the C-5 had been out for 14 years and in UK service for about 10 years. Now if the statement you referenced about advanced red threats had been made in 2034, then there might be an equivalence, but as it stands there isn’t.

This source pre-date the existence of the Meteor. They are merely talking about the potential of a ramjet, not even a VFDR.
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/terminal-velocity-9972/

The Meteor programme did not even begin until 2001 and the Meteor concept hadn’t even been selected for development in 1996. Now lets read more of that sources:

In choosing a propulsion solution, it also considered that solid propellants, with metallic additives such as boron or aluminium, raised detection concerns in both the visual and radar environments. Unburnt metallic particles, argues Aerospatiale, provide a good radar scatterer, risking exhaust-plume detection. The company also contends that unspent metallic agents in the plume could degrade the guidance datalink performance between the launch aircraft and the missile during the mid-course phase of the engagement. Finally, it raised concerns that a boron-based powerplant courted unacceptably high technical risks.

DASA power plant subsidiary Bayern Chemie, which is involved in providing the ramjet sustainer for the Meteor, contests the Aerospatiale conclusions. It has gone as far as writing to the German defence ministry in attempting to counter the Aerospatiale claims over boron-based solid ramjets.

The company claims that, as far as the technical risks are concerned, it has the experience of several successful technology-demonstrator projects, which it believes validate such a design approach. As far as plume metallic residue is concerned, the company says that tests carried out so far have been encouraging, with the results being nowhere as bad as Aerospatiale would suggest. Further tests are planned.

In prosecuting its case for a boron propellant, Bayern Chemie argues that a solid-ramjet solution (because of the higher fuel density than that of a ramjet design) allows a for a greater amount of propellant energy to be packed into the same volume of space.

It also claims, in supporting the choice of a solid ramjet, that there have been concerns over the combustion stability of small-diameter liquid ramjets at high-altitude flight profiles, suggesting that the BAe Sea Dart missile’s Rolls- Royce Odin ramjet suffers from such a problem. Another concern it raises is with the choice of JP10 for the FMRAAM sustainer, suggesting that the corrosive properties of this fuel cause doubts about suitability for long-term storage.

They were still determining the propulsion type at that stage, so the term ‘potentially’ is mere guess work. And you didn’t even quote the full thing.

It is believed to have been just such a conclusion that prompted the RAFto look beyond a conventional solid-rocket design (for the EF2000, the AIM-120B) to a more capable missile with a greater energy for the “end-game engagement”. There is no point in a missile reaching the final stage of the engagement if it cannot deal successfully with a target manoeuvring at 9G-plus. As a rule of thumb for a successful BVR engagement, a missile needs to have a minimum of three times the manoeuvre energy of its target. If a target pulls up to10G in an evasive manoeuvre, then the missile will need to sustain 30G-plus turns at the end of an engagement to record a kill.

Some sources indicate that RAF simulations of the Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker and Flanker Plus derivatives and associated missiles versus the EF2000 with the AIM-120B revealed an unacceptably poor exchange ratio. The focus fell on providing the EF2000 with a missile, which has a far greater no-escape volume at BVR ranges.

As Smith points out, the BVR environment is also expanding, as heralded by the emergence of the Russian Vympel’s long-burn R-27ER (AA-10 Alamo). Traditionally, the BVR engagement has gone out to around 40km (22nm). The next generation of BVRAAMs will push the engagement envelope to around 100km.

As well as providing increased absolute range, the rocket-booster/ramjet-sustainer design, more importantly, offers an increased no-escape zone. A ramjet-sustainer AAM potentially triples the volume of space within which the probability of a kill remains high.

So is it referring to the AIM-120B or the R-27ER, or the next generation of BVRAAMs in terms of the range it potentially triples? It certainly states ‘R-27ER’ closer to the point at which it mentions tripling. And is it not fair to assume that some of the things that led to a doubling of AMRAAM range since 1996 have also impacted ramjet range… lighter, smaller electronics allowing larger motor, more efficient guidance.

And as far as is know, the C-5 was the last AMRAAM to actually get a propulsion upgrade, range extensions after that were guidance system related.

http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-120.html

Well, the J-20 at least is operational already

Yeah, and so is Taranis.:highly_amused:

for me, operational means that when you violate Chinese airspace, you’ll get scrambled by J-20As.. won’t happen until 2024-25, methinks..

It usually requires at least one full squadron of aircraft too.

You know better than the Chinese huh?

Everybody knows you don’t go from first prototype flight to operational in 6 years, otherwise Typhoon would have flown in Desert Storm. And claiming an operational fighter without even a full squadron of prototypes/DAs is a bit rich.

Thankfully, LM sims show the F-35 will achieve a very favorable ratio against the J-20.

You know better than the Chinese huh?;) Sims? Please. Sims showed the Typhoon to be 70% as effective as the F-22 against flankers (7:1 vs 10:1). Still want to place your faith in sims?

Doesn’t say 3 times NEZ of any missile and also ancient – 21 years old to be precise, a report gathering funghi. “Potentially” – missile not even made yet, someone’s wild ass guesstimate. So to summarise, you have a source that doesn’t know lbs from kgs and contradicts itself dozens of times vs 21 year-old ****e from the mid-90s, and you’re pitching that against 2008 to 2014 articles from respected publications.:highly_amused::highly_amused: You’re basically doing the equivalent of referring to Vietnam Era information during Desert Storm.

Only one mentioned ‘3 times NEZ’ and it is an hilarious litany of errors. Someone who publishes the weight of Storm Shadow as 1,300lbs is clearly unfamiliar with the weapons they’re writing about and may well have thought the AIM-120B was the current RAF AMRAAM in 2013. And when RAF range figures for the Storm Shadow vary from 250 to 560+km in three different publications the accuracy of their statements is clearly somewhere within a +/-120% margin of error. So ‘3’ could be 6.6, or maybe Mach 4 is 4km/s, who knows?

I could also question why the RAF source is coming from newsdeskmedia.com and not the RAF. And where is the MBDA source backing up this statement? What next? CNN as a source?