Yes.. I personally think that your attempt was closely focused on showing that Russian designs are inferior by deliberately choosing features which they don’t have and ignoring features which they do have..

Errrr.. let’s use some logic first..
The R-27T has 33km effective kill range (head-on) and 63km maximum range. If the seeker only has 20km range, why the hell would they bother with range extension? read R-27ET with ~53km head-on range and 104km maximum range.. You’re not making any sense now.

Either the seeker range is by far not 20km or it’s not LOBL only.. or both..

No one denies that.. but why is exactly this feature listed and IRST is not? And why did you ignore the RVV-MD which has a QWIP imaging seeker, as well?

The F-22 will be getting IRST? When?

LOAL is only a matter of control electronics and software.. no big deal, IMHO.. since the T-50 has internal bays, it will be forced to use a LOAL missile, anyway.. which tells me that the RVV-MD must have this feature, as well..

Well I’m sorry you think that but IIR missiles with 90deg HOBS and LOAL are game changers. It previously wasn’t possible to hit enemy fighters that were on your tail and immunity to flares is a big deal.

I’m quoting fact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-27_(air-to-air_missile)#Variants

R-27T and ET variants can be used out of cloudiness, at least 15 degrees away from the bearing of sun, and 4 degrees away from the bearing of moon and ground based head-contrasting conditions. In cases of maximum head-on range launches where lock-command cannot be utilised, missile can be fired in PPS: In this mode, missile will fly straight until achieves target lock. As missile lacks capability of manoeuvering before lock, aircraft itself must maneuver so that missile will be pointed to no more than 15 degrees bearing of the target for confident capture by the IR seeker after launch. Equalising altitude is recommended but not required.[4]

So there is no way of firing it guided from beyond the 20km seeker range. It’s a blind shot, doesn’t even have INS, it flies roughly straight in PPS and might hit something if it sees them… and the sun and moon are in the right place… and the target doesn’t pop flares. I would definitely rate the likes of a MICA IR well above it.

Show me any IR/IIR AAM seeker that can acquire a target more than 20-25km away. In fact it’s not even 20km, more like 15km.

http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-Rus-BVR-AAM.html

R-27ET1 Acquisition range 5.4-8.0nmi

I missed IRST in my first run and Marcellago mentioned it, so I then added it here:

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?139875-Gripen-Typhoon-Rafale-vs-F-15C-F-16C-F-15E-Su-27-Mig-29&p=2334596#post2334596
http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?139875-Gripen-Typhoon-Rafale-vs-F-15C-F-16C-F-15E-Su-27-Mig-29&p=2334647#post2334647

Good question, don’t know.

I understood that the SRAAMs on the PAK-FA would be pop-out like on the F-22?? There are a hell of a lot of things that are ‘just’ electronics and software.

There is no plan to install an IRST on the F-22. Anything that may be planned is probably going to be so far out that it is rather pointless to even begin to ballpark a time-frame. There are plenty of other areas of capability and interoperability that they would like to address first and that will take well over a decade of upgrades. The HMS is a short term (3-4 or so years) thing and they could have done it faster had the timing of the sequester not allowed them to conduct preliminary integration evaluations of the Scorpion but as I had mentioned, the benefits of having one would have only come once the full capability of the Aim-9X was integrated around the end of 2017.

Weren’t they going to upgrade the MAWS to function as an IRST?

Let’s modify the chart a bit in order to get you an idea what I mean..

Aircraft / Wing Loading (lb/ft^2) / TWR / 3D TVC / IRST / HMCS / medium IR AAMs

F-22 / xx / 1.xx / no / no / no / no
Su-27 / 68 / 1.22 / no / yes / yes / yes
Rafale / 55 / 1.25 / no / no / no / yes
Su-35 / 76 / 1.26 / yes / yes / yes / yes

Get my point? I can define whatever criteria I see fit in order to make my design appear “better”. There is no indication which says that your criteria are more credible than mine.. For instance, I personally consider LOAL of limited use, much less important than having an IRST onboard.

Bit disingenuous. Firstly, why don’t you at least calculate the wing loading and TWR for the F-22? TWR 1.29+, wing loading 65lb/ft^2.

Secondly, why define an R-74 as medium range, when its range is approximately the same as an AIM-9X.

Thirdly, the whole point of specifying IIR was to denote missiles relatively invulnerable to flares.

IRST vs stealth, I’ll take stealth.

TVC, good range extender but most people who haven’t already fitted it aren’t even thinking about it. It adds weight, suicidal to use it in a real world dogfight and HMCS + LOAL achieves the same thing without the suicidal energy bleeding.

You may consider LOAL of limited use but extensive testing has proven otherwise, which is why all Western nations, from the US to the UK, to France, to Germany, to Italy have all invested in the technology.

I have not any doubt about the fact that you have reported the data correctly and in their integrity, Starfish prime.
Also because i’m absolutely certain that in the site you have taken it they have chosen those parameter on purpose.

90°hobs/LOAL/IIR seeker are all referred not to the plane in itself,but to the type of IR missile they carry.
Until you keep on referring to the old R-73 for the russian ones, Su-27 or 35 changes nothing in that regard.

Now Vanilla R-73 is there from 1984 when AIM-9x is operarive from 2003, updated version of the former are 75° degree boresight and use dual band seeker, that’s a different technology compared to IIR but fits the same scope.
In the same moment, why not any mention of the much more important IRST that’s instead a integral component of the plane, not of the missile and come as a standard in both russian planes and eurocanards?
I would dare to say that in this case the answer is just contained in the question…

In any case nothing against your work and intention: just as usual a caveat regarding a certain peculiar way used by some sources, above all the ones coming from the producers itself, to put down things in a certain peculiar manner.:eagerness:’

Thanks I will add IRST. Two colour IR doesn’t really achieve the same thing as IIR though, since it is still vulnerable to multi-spectral flares. Didn’t realise about the 75deg HOBS either.

About the F-117 shoot down. I was under the impression that it only flew mission during night?
If that was the case, how would anyone beside USAF know the F117 mission route..

Tracking other planes using the same corridor. Either way, regardless of whether the spy theory is legitimate, the plane flew within visual range of a SAM, that’s a mistake an F-35’s EW system will never let it make and it’s a mistake it can mitigate even if it does.

When you process the facts, an F-117 will give the same radar return at 8km as an arbitrary 1m^2 fighter will give at 53km, it has no EW. So what we’re really discussing is the ability of a 250kW X-Band radar to engage an EW-less 1m^2 fighter at 53km. Of course that’s possible. Heck, it’s an easier shot than an airliner (40m^2) at 135km when you look at the figures.

Thanks.

Aircraft / Wing Loading (lb/ft^2) / TWR / HOBS / LOAL / HMCS / IIR AAMs / IRST / VTAS

MiG-29 / 74 / 1.21 / No / Yes 75deg / Yes / No / Yes / No

Su-27 / 68 / 1.22 / No / Yes 75deg / Yes / No / Yes / No

Su-35 / 76 / 1.26 / No / Yes 75deg / Yes / No / Yes / No

MiG-35 / 74 / 1.31 / No / Yes 75deg / Yes / No / Yes / No

J-10 / 75 / 1.08 / No / No / Yes / Yes / Yes / No

Gripen C / 58 / 0.97 / Yes / Yes 90deg / Yes / Yes / No / No

F-15 C / 58* / 1.36* / Yes / Yes 90deg / Yes / Yes / No / No

F-16 C / 79 / 1.21 / Yes / Yes 90deg / Yes / Yes / No / No

Rafale C / 55 / 1.25 / Yes / Yes 90deg / No / Yes / Yes / Yes

Typhoon / 54 / >1.35 / Yes / Yes 90deg / Yes / Yes / Yes / Yes

*Used 28,000lb empty. Af.mil states 31,700lb??? Which would change figures to 66lb/ft^2 and 1.2 TWR.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface-to-air_missile#War_in_Vietnam

The Soviet Union supplied 7,658 SAMs to North Vietnam, and their defense forces conducted about 5,800 launches, usually in multiples of three. By the war’s end, about 205 aircraft had been lost to North Vietnamese surface-to-air missiles.[30]

5 B-52s were shot down by SA-2s during Linebacker II, to put that in perspective, B-52 tail gunners shot down 3 MiG-21s during the same period.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-52_Stratofortress#Air-to-air_combat

Guidance or dumb luck? You decide. The aircraft is an F-105, which is 20m long or 7mm in this photo, so I make the miss distance to be about 300m, but the aircraft was still damaged.

http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-SAM-Effectiveness.html

A damaged F-105D after a near miss by a proximity fused SA-2 round (US Air Force image).

Weaker/stronger doesn’t mean squat. What matters is whether you can reach your [political, commercial, strategic…] goals..

Yeah and they did in early 1973. Can you blame them for losing a war that started 2 years after they left? There were also many other factors to the South Vietnamese not being able to hold out, like the oil price shock of late 1973.