Are you sure there is a solid fuel booster in ASMP-A?

How else would it get up to operational speed?

Wikipedia? Really?

For the nth time, electronic steering gives a radar more agility, this translates into the ability to track more targets, mix air & ground modes or use pseudo-random scanning patterns (to reduce detection probability).

What it DOES NOT do is reduce the time needed to scan a given volume (at least in a significant way). That time is limited by the speed of light (emitted signal has to come back to the source…).

Q4 2019 for Kuwait. At least according to their Defense Ministry but I’m sure you know better…

http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/2016/04/05/kuwait-signs-eurofighter-deal/82647386/

Stop trying to make sense. The main rule of this forum are
1) planes should only be analyzed alone, without any support or as part of a larger force
2) only 1vs1 air duel matters, ground strike missions are irrelevant
3) quality of a system is irrelevant, dynamic variables can be ignored, the only important things is to be able to quote (meaningless) figures and claim that yours is the biggest.

So Rafale sucks because it has neither the largest static thrust nor the largest radar nor the biggest payload nor the greatest internal fuel range nor…

Okay, let me change my source from Wiki to ‘common knowledge’. Honestly, how can a mechanical device outpace a beam being steered electronically?

Well here’s a thought, if the mechanical scanning was near as fast, surely it would be able to track just as many targets.

Time is takes light to comes back? You mean like 1 microsecond for a target 150km away.

In fairness I’ve seen both 2018 and 2019 quoted so I’ll not argue that.

I don’t think that’s what anyone was saying.

Gripen C does have the AMRAAM however the kinematic performance is far away from Typhoon’s (and probably also rather inferior to Rafale’s)

I think we are probably all speculating here… none of us knows for sure exactly what “engagement” means in this context.

Nice try, but a Gripen C is at least as fast as a Rafale in a straight line (M2.0 vs M1.8) and since most launches would be subsonic it’s a moot point – the AMRAAM would out-range the MICA. But clearly this isn’t what’s being assessed.

No, we ain’t speculating, it’s just that you’re wrong, otherwise we could claim the same for detection, and/or just dismiss the whole eval based on not really knowing exactly how things were measured. I love the way Rafale guys use an eval to show off the pros of their aircraft but then try deny all the cons in the same damn eval.

Yes, above mach .8, the Block 50 (at GW 22,000lbs) comes close to matching an F-16A at combat weight (50% fuel to 2 AAM). That is the point you are missing. The two charts you posted were comparing the F-16A and Mirage 2000 at combat weight. The Block 50 weighs 20,200 lbs at operating weight (pilot, unusable fuel). Add to that the two Aim-9, ammo, chaff, and that leaves roughly 1,000lbs of fuel. So, no at 50% fuel the F-16C Block 50 does not match the F-16A, nor does it have a 25% thrust to weight ratio advantage over the Mirage 2000. You cannot pick arbitrary points to compare.

It shouldn’t be suprising that the delta wing 2000 has an excellent instantaneous turn rates, the trade-off is that a delta wing bleeds energy in a hard turn (less so with the close coupled delta/canard)

No, idea what the instability margin is. What the Mirage has is body strakes for drag reduction at supersonic speed and increase lift over wings at high AoA (like the Typhoon’s body strakes). The Mirage most likely has higher drag (a trait of delta wings) in a turn than the f-16, that, and not the lower thrust to weight ratio are likely the reason for the difference.

The newer delta-canards do not suffer the as much from this drawback.

That’s because the M2000 has a worse TWR as already mentioned though and no canards, so likely a lower instability margin but it can still generate more lift. The Typhoon suffers none of those ailments and at 50% fuel would be at a 1.37-1.43 TWR, whilst still packing a higher fuel fraction than either aircraft. You need the canards to make the delta configuration work properly.

But how can the Mirage stop itself flipping giving that it’s allegedly running a CoP forward of the CoG? That’s what I’m getting at. The only way is if the CoP moves back behind the CoG under alpha.

I’m not convinced increased drag is a trait of all deltas in high g turns. It should also be noted that we’re only looking at a 6g peak manoeuvre in those diagrams. At higher g, reducing Cl will become more important and once again favour larger wings, but unfortunately the M2000 doesn’t have the thrust to achieve any better in STR.

I’ve demonstrated in my response to Andraxxus that larger wing area becomes more important to hold g at lower speeds or higher altitudes, because the kCl^2 term becomes dominant. So the case at 15,000ft, won’t necessarily be the case at 30,000ft and the case at 300m/s sea level won’t be the case at 220m/s sea level. As the required Cl increases the lower wing loading prevails, and TWR also becomes a major benefactor at high altitudes where the drag during high g turns increases due to high alphas.

The bottom line is that M2000 doesn’t have the thrust to drive home the lift advantage in STR, the Typhoon does. It makes a huge difference since thrust = drag in STR. So you increase thrust by 30+% and you can increase drag and v^2 by 30+%, so you inevitably increase g by 30+%. So where the Mirage stops at 6g, given 33% more thrust (same TWR as Typhoon roughly) it would manage at least 8g, even ignoring the component of thrust helping out the lift. Add 10% to put it up with the F-16 on TWR and g goes from 6g to 6.5g (at least) and it wins, again ignoring the component of thrust in the lift direction due to alpha. In reality the component of thrust in the lift direction increases lift and makes the turns even faster. So TWR is very important and in the initial comparison the Typhoon leads on both wing loading and TWR by some margin, so it’s a double whammy and comparing a canardless delta with lower TWR and questionable instability margin does nothing to refute that. Furthermore the Typhoon’s TWR is such that it can pull ITRs all day and recover SEP in an instant.

Orbital stuck with a proven/safe solid rocket motor design but increased its diameter (15% over the HARM/AARGM) to get the desired increase in range. Let’s see if Raytheon wishes to compete for this contract, and if they do, what sort of solution they propose. A radically new propulsion concept, such as a VFDR would struggle to meet the IOC time-lines specified by the Navy even if proven designs (such as that on the meteor) are pursued. The Navy wants developmental testing to begin by the end of the decade. Its going to be tough to field this thing on the growler in the desired timeframe even with a larger motor let alone something that the navy doesn’t currently operate (as in a IRR).

Personally, I think this is a safe bet to get a much improved AARGM on the Growler and eventually the F-35C’s. Sustained supersonic or Hypersonic missile concepts are being explored through other initiatives for other applications. You had the T3 do that with a Solid IRR for DARPA, and you have DARPA doing the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) that expects to begin flight testing in 2019. Since these are R&D projects not tied to an induction time-line, they are much better suited to explore that aspect of weapons development than something that will likely have a fixed budget, and rigid timeframe for fielding operational capability.

So what’s the difference between liquid and solid IRR? Does the liquid IRR use a liquid rocket as well as a liquid ramjet? Or is a solid IIR, solid rocket + VFDR?

a- Let’s wait until the F-35 get a swash-plate then. (though I’m affraid conformal multi function aesa arrays will kill the swash-plate market sooner than you think)
b- The Rafale has been able to do real time A2A kill assessment with its OSF TV channel for 10 years now.

a-The F-35 is out of the Rafale’s league altogether, but Captor-E will be swash-plate mounted.
b-But currently has no IRST.

Engagement range isn’t necessarily about Radar range. To me it just means that since the EF was proposed with Amraam C7 & has better kinematics, it could engage from further. Period.

Detection & acquisition are linked more or less directly to radar. Engagement not necessarily. Unless of course you have proofs that it’s the ability of the radar to engage targets.

Nic

That might be a valid argument if the Gripen C didn’t also have AMRAAMs. And UK only has C-5s BTW, certainly back in 2008 anyway.

I’m afraid if you want to use the positives of a report, you also have to accept the negatives. No dice.

Agree, for a fighter what matter is the ability to deploy its weapons or assist others in doing so. Current range is way more than enough even for meteors to its max range.
As a matter of fact, Technology tends toward enhanced T/R modules, as Gan , allowing higher power with less cooling needs and improved performance overall , not to mention miniaturization.
Engaged since 2012 for some ,others already flying on test bed today are pre-studies PEA for rafale and RBE2 like: INCAS, MELBAA,CARAA converge toward solutions absorbing Gan tech, enabling multi-array flexible parallel and multichannel processing. Those are to come to fruition in the 2020 horizon. Way less trivial than a nose cone size , it provides enhanced detection and tracking capability against low slow flying and stealth while enabling distributed arrays via conform antenna. Concern is less about the range in absolute those day and more about detection and tracking within range without radiating too much for discretion. Seeing airliners at 500km+ is way less interesting than detecting the low flying tying to sneak past 60 km away .
Besides, to start with, I am not convinced the radar equation apply all the same when dealing with an array made of T/R modules. And assuming performance of the modules insignificant in comparison to the nose radius in such case could also prove deceiving .

Actually that’s completely wrong with a 50% greater antenna size even a GaAs AESA would be a match for a smaller GaN AESA. Because Power is a ^1/4 relationship and Antenna Area is a ^3/4 relationship. But Radar 2 will be getting GaN anyway.