I have provided ample sources given that you haven’t provided a single one. Here is an idea, go find a source that actually says triple the NEZ of the AIM-120C5 and we can talk.

No. All you’ve done is fortuitously stumbled across someone in a PR department at the RAF who doesn’t know the difference between lbs and kgs, with a proven track record of providing bad data, who thought that the AIM-120B was the current version of the AMRAAM in 2013. If MBDA specifically stated this, show me where.

All the sources in this thread

You’ve presented one. A source which also lists the weight of a Storm Shadow at 1,300lbs. Clearly someone who knows what they’re talking about.

Furthermore, MBDA will not and can not specifically state C-5 because of the MTCR, which is also why the range of Storm Shadow in your ‘reliable’ source was reduced from 300+nm to 180 miles. Many of the other figures quoted in this reliable source wouldn’t even pass a wikipedia peer review.

And who is ‘newsdeskmedia.com’ that isn’t even an official RAF site? Some reliable source.

Sadly the RAF booklets are anything but reliable. You’ll find the speed of an AIM-120 quoted at M2.5 here and range at 20nm. The range of an air-launched ASRAAM quoted at less than the range of a ground-launched CAMM and yet a higher speed than the AMRAAM (Mach 3+). And the quoted range of Storm Shadow in the following link is quoted at in excess of twice that quoted in your link. Your link also quotes the weight of a Storm Shadow at 1,300lbs.:highly_amused: So it’s a litany of errors from start to end. And I spotted all that in the first 10s.

https://www.raf.mod.uk/rafcms/mediafiles/E28BE76F_5056_A318_A833EB4C9A735AD8.pdf

And no mention of ‘3 times’ in your other sources, so all you have is one extremely erroneous source using 15 year-old specs that have already been exceeded in testing.

I could even show you this RAF publication that states 250km for the Storm Shadow. So in 3 different places we have 180 miles (290km), 250km and 300+nm (560km) and 1,300lbs. And you want to use RAF booklets for accurate information? Maybe it was the original plan, when the spec was still about 100km, or maybe the writer’s hand slipped like it did in so many other places, or maybe they just didn’t check there facts, like in the other places too. Sometimes I think their intent is to spread misinformation deliberately.

https://www.raf.mod.uk/rafcms/mediafiles/0186cc2a_1143_ec82_2ef2bffff37857da.pdf

20km – I wouldn’t take any range figure in these booklets as read. They will understate prolifically and if we take the 100km for SPEAR, designers already believe 120+km is possible.

https://www.publications.parliament….94/694we11.htm

This 1996 article likewise uses the AIM-120B as the point of comparison for the 3x NEZ claim:

Grp Capt Graeme Smith, British Aerospace’s military air advisor, says that”-current medium-range weapons suffer from a lack of overall total energy in that they do not have the manoeuvrability required to achieve a kill against a highly agile opponent: that is, they have a relatively small no-escape zone”.

It is believed to have been just such a conclusion that prompted the RAF to 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 to 10G 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-27RE (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.
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/ar…velocity-9972/

Neither source makes any mention of ‘3 times NEZ’ only ‘far greater NEZ’, all the sources that do state ‘3 times NEZ’ post date the AIM-120C-5, and range from 2008 to 2014. The B was long gone history at that point. Nice try though.

And to further add, where it states ‘around 100km’, the Meteor has already made an intercept at ‘well in excess of 100km’, so it looks like early design targets were exceeded.

http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/defense/2012-07-08/theres-no-escaping-mbdas-meteor-missile

GF2 was a tough test of the missile’s ability to snap-up through thick air in a tail chase. GF3 then tested high-altitude performance, GF4 was a longer snap-down tail chase against background clutter and GF5 was a high-speed head-on engagement at “well in excess of 100 kilometers,” said Bradford. The Meteor’s actual maximum range is classified.

Finally, GF6 was another long-range and head-on engagement in March-April of this year that fully tested the missile’s data link to and from the launch aircraft. Bradford noted that the targets for all except GF5 were high-subsonic Mirach drones with a radar cross section “equivalent to a real-world fighter,” according to Bradford. GF5 engaged a BQM-167 drone.

“All the targets conducted a final evasive maneuver,” added Bradford.

Meteor is slower to accelerate and reaches a slower peak velocity than “Current MRAAMs.” That is an obvious drawback in a relatively short ranged scenario.

Yes, I referred to that slide in my previous post but the missile is throttleable, so what flight profile is that for? Long, medium, short? What altitude? Is there a reason the speed picks up third-way and then drops back? If we assume the bit after the two lines diverge is where the VFDR takes over, clearly the initial thrust at that point (i.e. burn rate) is greater than at half or third-way. So had that thrust continued (full throttle), what speed would it have reached?

Okay, you’re really talking about Rmin, and I concede the Meteor may have a larger Rmin, but then neither missile is ideally suited or designed for close-in work.

It will be used in conjunction with F-35s, with the F-35s flying up front with a limited number of missiles, or perhaps only 2 missiles and bombs. The F-35 will target enemy aircraft for a greater number of Typhoons carrying a larger number of missiles. I think you underestimate people’s foresight too. The YF-22 had been flying around since 1990. Future operations with stealth aircraft were likely envisaged and right now no non-NATO state has operational stealth fighters and it could be sometime before they exist in significant numbers and some of them don’t look that stealthy.

It is also simply more efficient to fly at a slower albeit sustained speed than to accelerate to very high speed and coast. Even if we limited ourselves to a discussion of solid rocket motors, a very long burning low thrust motor would be more optimal for a very long-range shot than a shorter burning motor of identical impulse.

Essentially all modern air to air missiles expend their propellant in around 10 seconds because if you are forced to choose how to optimize your missile you can’t justify optimizing for long range shots at the cost of poor short to medium range performance.

Meteor doesn’t have to make that choice because it is throttleable. The same missile can fly slower (and keep the motor burning longer) for a long range shot and in a medium range scenario can fly faster. The only thing it doesn’t do well are relatively short ranged shots because it is relatively slow off the rail, can’t reach as high a top speed, and almost certainly faces HOBS limitations because of its air breathing propulsion.

For what it is designed to do it is pretty obviously the best missile in the world. A Eurofighter with Meteor and the fancy gimballed AESA will likely be the ultimate 4th generation fighter for BVR combat… excellent speed and altitude performance, an excellent radar that can look over the aircraft’s shoulder, and the fastest missile available for long-range shots. The only problem with all this is that while it is technologically awesome, it will also only become operational right around the time it is being surpassed by something else… (stealth aircraft)

All that kinematic performance, on the part of the Eurofighter itself and the Meteor missile, doesn’t help much if you can’t reliably track your opponent at long range.

In early testing it did look slow off the rail but in more recent tests it actually looked quite fast although maybe not as fast as an AMRAAM, couldn’t say.

http://www.baesystems.com/en/article/successful-dual-firing-marks-major-milestone-on-meteor-programme-for-eurofighter-typhoon

Vmax – yes there’s been a graphic suggesting it isn’t as high but is that in all cases, or in the case of a long range intercept, because remember the Meteor is throttleable? And longer burn at higher altitude could mean very long acceleration periods and very high speeds. At present all we know is M4+.

What do you mean by HOBS limitations? How do ducts affect seeker FoV?

The reliable tracking at long range will be provided for by F-35s and other stealthy unmanned assets (space assets?) in the future. I don’t think stealth aircraft surpass Meteor, if anything they complement it. Legacy 4th gen jets will operate alongside 5th gen jets in air combat for at least another 25 years, so come the 2020s the Meteor will allow the few 5th gen jets up front to target aircraft for the larger number of 4th gen jets hanging back carrying vastly more missiles. Equally, Meteor will provide 5th gen jets with the ability to achieve kills without risking IRST-detection or targeting, which could become increasingly sophisticated. It will also enable some of the slower 5th gen jets to have the upper hand against faster, higher altitude, more energetic targets, stealth or otherwise, front or rear hemisphere. In many ways it’s the perfect missile irrespective of some people trying to belittle it.

F-35 driver and his paperwork:

Probably on the Mach Loop in Wales.

Target can accelerate, climb. I would assume the the difference between WEZ and NEZ is smaller in a tail chase vs other target aspects, but not the same.

In the case of a target at 20km, it likely can’t significantly climb, accelerate or turn, hence why the two V lines converge to one at 18km.

It would also have to be doing M2.0+ minimum. Range at 20km altitude in tail chase is 40km, 5x that is 200km. M6.0 (average speed) missile will take 300km to hit target at 200km receding at M2.0. And at 10km altitude, if we assume the nearer line is for a plane at M2.0, 5x 13km is 65km. At M4.0 average, it would take until 130km to reach that target, after which the missile is still doing >M2.0. So we’re already approaching the Rmax of an AIM-120D even at 10km, as opposed to 18-25km.

I don’t speak Russian but I have a suspicion that the inner of the 3 lines in the frontal hemisphere is likely the NEZ and even that extends to 75km at ~16km (50,000ft). Three times that is 225km NEZ, which is already better than the AIM-120D’s Rmax considerably. So it looks like earlier comments made by others were not hyperbole.

Stop Press ! New irritating threats from of all places, the EU. I still can’t believe.

Herr ‘Adolf’ Juncker in his starring role as agent provocateur, comments that due entirely to Brexit and the intransigence of the Brits, the English language so far as its use in the EU is concerned will be on its way out.

And the chief negotiator got up and spoke in English directly after him.