The Kh-31P uses one of three alternative seekers designated L-111, L-112, L-113. There are reported to allow attacks against the Nike Hercules, HAWK, Patriot, and Aegis. The follow-on K-31PM uses the new multiband L-130, developed by the Avtomatika CKBA.

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wait whatttt , wasnt the Aegis system use AESA radar and Patriot use AESA radar as well ?

Not sure what you mean. Earlier ARMs guided by looking at the side-lobes to aim themselves but with rotating radar, this was problematic. ALARM tried to counter this by coming down from directly above.

why the early ARM aim at the side lobe but not the main lobe or the back lobe ? if the radar rotating wasnt it still the same because you still got radiating signal from the radar all the time ? why cant the missiles just home on it ?

Not if it’s an aircraft because you don’t know range accurately enough and so far bearing accuracy of RWR is an order of magnitude or so lower than for radar even for the best systems*, so it doesn’t provide useful targeting parameters. You don’t know the altitude of an aircraft and you don’t know range. You know the altitude of a SAM radar, because it’s on the ground, which gives you range via triangulation with ground, and after firing it probably won’t move, so even if it shuts down terminal homing will work. And aircraft radar could shut down, and it could move and you don’t have accurate targeting parameters in the first place because of the range/altitude issue, so there’s a lot more guess work.

*I’m even assuming that interferometry works against AESA here.

what is interferometry ?
btw how about find the elevation of enemy aircraft by IRST and find their altitude that way ? (you now the angle between your aircraft and enemy by IRST , you know your own altitude => know their altitude by triangulation )

True for MiG-31, but not for Su-35. It has ceiling around 18000m, so with 10+ missiles and high fuel load, it should shrink to 15000m. That is pretty much the lift limit, Su-35 will have no great acceleration or maneuverability there. For any ordinary fighter, 12000 m is a good altitude.

iamnot saying sustain high altitude , but like to zoom up 60K feet , release missiles then come down , so that missiles dont have to climb much or fly in thick air
Su-35 is really big air plane , not sure if carry 10 r-77 really affected it that much , how about mig-31 ? it carry much heavier and more draggy missiles and 2 aircraft about the same size

5G is the supersonic limit for MiG-31, IDK about its subsonic limits. Its possibly talking about sustained turn, but I am talking about instantenius turn when pulling 5Gs.

but instantenius turn reduce speed and altitude significantly isn’t it ?
is the 5Gs limit of mig-31 is with or without weapon ? , what is the limit when it loaded with 6 R-37 , 2 R-40 , 2 R-77 ? ( all pylon have missiles )

~60 seconds burn time looks pretty logical to me. Rocket burn is determined by design of engine. If you want quick acceleration right off the rail, you want a short burn motor; assuming specific impulse remaining same, increasing propellant burn rate should increase F accelerate missile to its max speed in a few seconds, which is wanted for VWR missiles. Like lukos says, rocket engine thrust is not affected by the increase of altitude. So for long range missiles, its desirable to reduce burn rate, where missile accelerates slowly but reserves some propellant for high altitude so missile will continiue generating thrust in thin air to reach longer distances. Sustaining M4.5 is not a correct term, a R-33 should reach M4.5 perhaps 40 seconds after its launch. On the negative side, this requires some minimum launch distance, where missile could gain some airspeed to have maneuverability to shoot down its target.

but 60 seconds seem like even longer than a ramjet engine ,wasnt ramjet supposed to have much much longer burn time than solid fuel ? ?
btw i dont really think R-33/37 have problem with minimum launch distance because Mig-31 can fly very fast ( mach 2.8 ) so missiles can fly really fast when release
btw Phoenix have problem with max speed that it can be release because if F-14 fly faster the missiles will fly upward and hit the airplane , do R-33 have the same problem ?

BTW This discussion is not relevant at all; Lets make it more relevant by saying;

R-27RE max range = ~120 km. R-33S max range = ~200 km. I say,
a)R-33S fired at 100 km againist Su-35, has significantly higher Pk than a R-27RE fired at MiG-31BM at same range.
b)R-33S has much better terminal maneuverability than R-27RE at high altitudes, after both flies 100km distance.

Reasoning: R-33S has better sustainer, lower wing loading, better warhead, and its more or less at middle of its launch envelope.

how much the situation change if we take in to account ramjet R-77 ( assume it have same performer as Meteor )

Why do they fly spiral paths? I think you should reconsider your statement.

dont see aim-120 rolling at all
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpJSviD8D4k

by contrast RIM-116 is rolling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zdp9llrBLnA

spiral paths happened to missiles using Laser beam-riding like 9K121 Vikhr
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyabIb2QxuU

A rolling cylinder with angle of attack provides significant lift. The body itself provides lift. Even the old Red Eye manpads used rolling airframe for lift. Some modern missiles have nearly no wings for this very reason, yet still pull 40G.

most Anti air missile don’t roll, except Rim-116

It would only be easy if the receiver that is listening of the signal was in the main beam of the radar. The relatively large sidelobes present in the polar diagram of a conventional reflector type antenna radiate enough energy to make detection (and ARM attack) relatively easy, but this is not the case with an electronically scanned array. PESA and AESA sidelobes are minimal.

wait


if the AESA radar is tracking an aircraft does that mean the aircraft is in main lobes any way ? so what you mean is that it would be easy to detect if the aircraft have RWR ?

The question is interesting but it may have several different answers.

In fact the SAM with ramjet propulsion as SA 4 Ganef and SA 6 Gainful were replaced by SA 12 Gladiator / Giant and SA 11 Gadfly that has been boosted by solid fuel rockets .

but wasnt all ramjet missiles have solid fuel booster too ?
all so as far as i know Ramjet missiles have far better cruise speed compared to normal missiles of the same size , ( it also need to carry less fuel because oxygen are taken from atmosphere

The reason might be that the MiG 25BM had a mission to destroy surveillance radars and AWACS even in this case the Kh 58 missiles would be launched by MiG 25BM at a speed of Mach 2.8 and an altitude of 22,000 m( 66.000 ft), which would allow the missile Kh 58 could reach at least 250km ( 140 NMI).

While Kh 31P would be launched at lower altitudes and speeds by Su 24M and the fomer MiG 27K against fire control radars and jamming aircraft’s ( EF 111A and EA 6 ) , which in this case would be more indicated the ramjet propulsion, however the estimated maximum range would be less than 120km ( 65 NMI).

In this case I do not have any information about such testing with Kh 31P had been launched by MiG 25BM in the same conditions of the Kh 58.

However it could be possible to assume that a missile with ramjet propulsion has been obeying the same parameters that an aircraft with supersonic capability, ie, that the ratio between the engine and the air intakes has been optimized in ratio with the altitude at which it will operate, and thus are the reason for the complex air intakes with variable geometry in the same way that the engines with control thrust.

Because the legacy ramjet missile has been known so far has lacks these two features, those ramjet missiles has been restricted to be launched for max altitudes, since it ramjet propulsion need of the Oxygen from the air atmospheric to the combustion of the ramjet propellants.

In this case the higher altitude is lower the concentration of Oxygen in the Atmosphere, which will decrease the thrust from the ramjet propulsion, what will leave at the reduction of the final speed obtained by the missile with ramjet propulsion, in the same way consequently will decrease the range of the missile and maneuverability of the same in the final approach of the target.

The low density of the thin air from high altitude could be an advantage for missiles with solid or liquid fuel rocket in reason of the great reduction of the aerodynamic drag, however for missile with legacy ramjet propulsion this advantage has disappeared due to drastically reduction in the concentration of Oxygen from High Atmosphere.

i understand your point that low oxygen affect ramjet missiles performer but even MiG 25 , mig-31 are said to be able to fly at 60-70K ft ( low fuel load ) and they use turbojet engine then it would be safe to assume that Ramjet engine operate well at these altitude too , their engine probably not work at 100-120K ft but what the point ? , at these altitude missiles fin doesnt work anyway so they are basically useless
btw doesnt ramjet dont have variable geometry because they dont have moving part ?