Combat Aircraft technology and Evolution

[Steven Rogers]

Propulsion is the heart of missile! Meteor has solid fuel ducted motor with ramjet. Aim120 doesn't have it. So this equal equal range is American fanboyism. Meteor range has no match in aim 120d . Neither does aim120d escape zone meets that of meteor.

These are redundant arguments. Yes USA can buy meteor but that just proves USA is behind the game while investing far more money .

Maybe if American can finally get ramjet right into aim260 it will become better but today gold standard is meteor and American tech here is just silver level.

Indeed and it took a consortium of western countries more than 2 decades to come up with a missile which equals the performance of AMRAAM in terms of seeker,datalink,and electronics and excel in propulsion however one should know that the performace also depends upon the type of fuel with the propulsion,meteor offers better performance in the long range engagement where Its ramjet(which is slow in terms of generating impulse if compared equivalent to the rocket motor)ignites several times to maintain the kinetic energy high even in the end game(which is an adv in the long range engagement),at med ranges AMRAAM Derby ER and other rocket powered bvrs are more economical if not excel in the performace,a single meteor costs around 2 million dollars which is 5 times more expensive than astra missile or AMRAAM C6. By the way Americans filed papers on SFDR way back in 60s and in 90s they found rocket motor more economical over ramjet.

 

[Steven Rogers]

Outclasses in what area? The only clear advantage of Meteor over AIM120 is propulsion. But AIM120D's 100km+ range and 70 km NEZ is competitive woth Meteor.

Besides, if Meteor is really insurmountable in performance then the US can simply buy its body and mate it with its own seeker much like what Japan is tring to do with Meteor body and its own AESA radar seeker.

But the US should have good reasons to go for purely rocket propulsion in its new long range AIM-260. We'll soon fond out more details of this missile which will be the new gold standard of medium to long range AAM much like AIM-120 was in 3 decades of service.

As far as i know,meteor has twice the NEZ compared to the latest AIM120D.

 

[Steven Rogers]

2026 seems late. Europe already has meteor and with sfdr project India and Russia will have same class missile by 2026-28.

USA lead is slipping away faster than anticipated before.

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Oh no! No lead is slipping fast , Just compare the wt of latest AMRAAM with those russian and indian missiles....the level of automation and material tech is decades ahead against russian or indian missile. the latest amraam weighs 160kgs approx and offer over 160 km of range unclassified,while indian missile weighs around 170kgs and can go upto 110kms unclassified.

 

[IndianHawk]

Indeed and it took a consortium of western countries more than 2 decades to come up with a missile which equals the performance of AMRAAM in terms of seeker,datalink,and electronics and excel in propulsion however one should know that the performace also depends upon the type of fuel with the propulsion,meteor offers better performance in the long range engagement where Its ramjet(which is slow in terms of generating impulse if compared equivalent to the rocket motor)ignites several times to maintain the kinetic energy high even in the end game(which is an adv in the long range engagement),at med ranges AMRAAM Derby ER and other rocket powered bvrs are more economical if not excel in the performace,a single meteor costs around 2 million dollars which is 5 times more expensive than astra missile or AMRAAM C6. By the way Americans filed papers on SFDR way back in 60s and in 90s they found rocket motor more economical over ramjet.

More accurate argument is it took time to hone solid fuel propulsion rather than seeker and other parts . Why hasn't usa came up with similar propulsion in similar timeline?

Because propulsion is the difficult part here.

 

[IndianHawk]

Oh no! No lead is slipping fast , Just compare the wt of latest AMRAAM with those russian and indian missiles....the level of automation and material tech is decades ahead against russian or indian missile. the latest amraam weighs 160kgs approx and offer over 160 km of range unclassified,while indian missile weighs around 170kgs and can go upto 110kms unclassified.

And where is that decades operational difference with solid fuel based aam missile.

USA today had sfdr in operations =0
Will have one in operations in few years.

India/ Russia will catch up with sfdr based missile in few years after USA does that.

That's the whole thing I'm pointing out. Why is this so hard to accept . USA lead has already slipped from decades to few years.

 

[Steven Rogers]

More accurate argument is it took time to hone solid fuel propulsion rather than seeker and other parts . Why hasn't usa came up with similar propulsion in similar timeline?

Because propulsion is the difficult part here.

USA did came up in 90s ,with raytheon offering a ramjet powered a2a missile which was dusted due the cost and weight issue and since usa already had amraam which met their requirement and was getting regular upgrades. the oldest patent on sfdr was filled by the US in 1960. USN planned in late 2000nds for the AMRAAM 120D itself ,so the development occurs with the emerging requirement and not to counter others developement,by the way METEOR was operationalised only in 2016 after being under development for almost 23 years.....

 

[Steven Rogers]

And where is that decades operational difference with solid fuel based aam missile.

USA today had sfdr in operations =0
Will have one in operations in few years.

India/ Russia will catch up with sfdr based missile in few years after USA does that.

That's the whole thing I'm pointing out. Why is this so hard to accept . USA lead has already slipped from decades to few years.

US bvr enagement tactic is totally around AMRAAM why on earth they will be move to sfdr and get all the experience in a snap...remind you,meteor was designed to replace british semi active radar guided missiles not AMRAAMs.

 

[asianobserve]

As far as i know,meteor has twice the NEZ compared to the latest AIM120D.

As far as I know the NEZ requirement or figure for Meteor was during its initial design and development phase when AMRAAMs were still AIM120B or C-3 models.

 

[IndianHawk]

US bvr enagement tactic is totally around AMRAAM why on earth they will be move to sfdr and get all the experience in a snap...remind you,meteor was designed to replace british semi active radar guided missiles not AMRAAMs.

If USA is so averse to sfdr than what propulsion will aim260 use?

 

[IndianHawk]

I

As far as I know the NEZ requirement or figure for Meteor was during its initial design and development phase when AMRAAMs were still AIM120B or C-3 models.

It is 3 times that of aim120 c5.

 

[Steven Rogers]

If USA is so averse to sfdr than what propulsion will aim260 use?

didnt said anything like that,in 90s US had no threat against their forcemultipliers ,chinese were certainly not a threat then but they are now,with new pl series in development Us needs to out range and out perform those chinese models and as far per the news,they wont use ramjets and will use rocket motor to achieve such performace,this only speaks their lead in the rocket motor tech,which will give meteor equivalent performance at the fraction of the cost of meteor itself.

 

[Steven Rogers]

As far as I know the NEZ requirement or figure for Meteor was during its initial design and development phase when AMRAAMs were still AIM120B or C-3 models.

As per the official website,the NEZ is quite big compared to current rocket motor powered missiles.

 

[asianobserve]

As per the official website,the NEZ is quite big compared to current rocket motor powered missiles.

Again, that's based on design data of Meteor when it was still AIM-120B or C-3 in European service.

 

[IndianHawk]

didnt said anything like that,in 90s US had no threat against their forcemultipliers ,chinese were certainly not a threat then but they are now,with new pl series in development Us needs to out range and out perform those chinese models and as far per the news,they wont use ramjets and will use rocket motor to achieve such performace,this only speaks their lead in the rocket motor tech,which will give meteor equivalent performance at the fraction of the cost of meteor itself.

My point is if USA goes forward with ramjet in near future than your theory of how USA can't throw away aim experience and tactics is flawed.

Rocket motors can't keep up with sfdr. That's just physics. Let's see what USA will chose better physics or older experience which is no longer relevant to the new era.

 

[IndianHawk]

Again, that's based on design data of Meteor when it was still AIM-120B or C-3 in European service.

No matter how much you try to create false equivalent meteor is superior to aim class including c and d versions. That's because solid fuel ducted ramjet is leagues ahead of rocket motors. At this point you are disputing physics .

 

[asianobserve]

My point is if USA goes forward with ramjet in near future than your theory of how USA can't throw away aim experience and tactics is flawed.

Rocket motors can't keep up with sfdr. That's just physics. Let's see what USA will chose better physics or older experience which is no longer relevant to the new era.

The US is not going ramjet in A2A missiles. Here are it's known medium/long range A2A missile projects:

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...l-require-a-custom-storage-bunker-at-hill-afb

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zo...next-generation-long-range-air-to-air-missile

 

[asianobserve]

No matter how much you try to create false equivalent meteor is superior to aim class including c and d versions. That's because solid fuel ducted ramjet is leagues ahead of rocket motors. At this point you are disputing physics .

There's so much more to A2A missiles than propulsion. Even if Meteor is superior in range and kinematics still it's not of significant disadvantage to the US for:

1. US fighters will not face Meteor armed fighters in war; and,

2. US F-22 and F-35 fighters will always have the first look first shot on any adversary under current fighters, either European, Russian or Chinese;

3. Whatever negligible advantage Meteor may have over current AIM120D will only be useful for 4th and 4.5th gen fighters (because of #2).

Again, if ramjet is so superior then the US would already be investing in such A2A missile or as I said just buy Meteor and Americanize it.

 

[IndianHawk]

There's so much more to A2A missiles than propulsion. Even if Meteor is superior in range and kinematics still it's not of significant disadvantage to the US for:

1. US fighters will not face Meteor armed fighters in war; and,

2. US F-22 and F-35 fighters will always have the first look first shot on any adversary under current fighters, either European, Russian or Chinese;

3. Whatever negligible advantage Meteor may have over current AIM120D will only be useful for 4th and 4.5th gen fighters (because of #2).

Again, if ramjet is so superior then the US would already be investing in such A2A missile or as I said just buy Meteor and Americanize it.

USA will be facing sfdr armed Russian missile ( equivalent to meteor before 2030).

USA fleet still consist mostly of 4th and 4.5 gen fighters.

Su57 and j20 armed with longer range missile than USA will negate the stealth advantage of f22 and f35 to a large extent as even if USA plane see the enemy first they won't have sufficient range to target if they lack sfdr propulsion.

 

[asianobserve]

Another thing to note is that I don't see the Russians or Chinese fielding ramjet A2A missiles. The Russians are testing ramjet on R-77 but it's more experimental.

The US has had ramjet missile programs since the late 1940s. They had the Gorgon A2A missile program. USAF fielded Bomarc and Navajo ramjet SAMs in late 40s.Then the USN had the Bumblebee program in late 40s that concentrated on ramjet creating the Talos SAM.

The US only uses ramjet now for its target missile Coyote to simulate supersonic maneuvering anti-ship missiles.

Note that Coyote has been in service earlier than Meteor.

So no, the US is not behind in ramjet missiles. It was ahead in using it and realized that conventional rocket motors more than compensate for whatever advantage ramjets may have especially on A2A applications.

 

[asianobserve]

I did some internet reasearch on Meteor and learned that it was the American Hughes company that originally proposed the ramjet propulsion for Meteor:

USA offers ramjet sweetener to UK
04 OCTOBER, 1995

THE US GOVERNMENT has agreed to transfer to the UK development of an advanced ramjet for its future medium-range air-to-air missile programme, but how much of this work would be performed in Europe remains under debate.

Hughes plans to offer an extended-range derivative of the AIM-120 advanced medium-range air-to-air missile (AMRAAM), powered by a variable-flow ducted rocket (VFDR), to meet UK Ministry of Defence Staff Requirement (Air) 1239, for which an invitation to tender is expected in late October.

An Atlantic Research (ARC)/Alliant Techsystems team has been working on the VFDR power plant for the AIM-120 for ten years, but the USA has no current plans to develop an extended-range AMRAAM.

The USA is instead prepared to transfer the VFDR programme to Europe, says Hughes, where development would be completed.

ARC says that the US Government has not yet decided how much VFDR development work would be transferred to Europe, and how much would remain in the USA. The team is supporting the Hughes bid and, separately, has responded to a British Aerospace request for information (RFI) on a ramjet power plant for its proposed S225X missile.

ARC says that the team has permission to transfer the VFDR project to the UK and has had discussions with Royal Ordnance, a BAe subsidiary and the only UK company with the necessary capability following Rolls-Royce's decision to stop work on ramjets.

The company says that Germany's Bayern Chemie and Volvo of Sweden have also responded to the UK company's RFI. Bayern Chemie has previously collaborated with ARC on ramjet development.

Hughes would like to see all of the VFDR development work performed in Europe, possibly by a consortium of UK, German and Swedish companies, with the US company supplying guidance and warhead sections. The UK requirement is for a longer-range weapon, to arm the Eurofighter EF2000.

In addition to BAe, with the proposed S225X, other contenders for SR(A) 1239 include Hughes, Matra and Daimler-Benz Aerospace with Bayern Chemie.

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/usa-offers-ramjet-sweetener-to-uk-24007/