But lets assume that AIM-120C5/7 , RVV-SD and Meteor has similar range , the meteor would still be better because of its all powered Ramjet propulsion and perhaps more modern design.
More modern design?
Is Meteor a Photon Torpedo or something?
How could it be better if it has a similar range yet uses a more efficient form of propulsion...
A rocket motor is simple and relatively cheap with no moving parts... the reason you would use a ramjet propulsion system is to get better range performance... in all the time it has taken to get Meteor ready for service it seems the conventional rocket motor missiles have caught it up.
Which would likely be a good reason why the Russians seem to have not bothered with a ramjet R-77 and perhaps gone for scramjet powered missile instead.
Ramjet is more efficient and lighter, but the reduction in weight is not accompanied by a reduction in volume as the meteor still needs a solid rocket booster to get it up to speed and when that is used up you need space inside for the ramjet and its fuel.
From I what I read for BVR missile the effective range would warry depending if the target is approaching or receeding , so the real effective range is roughly half then what it is advertised because solid fuel missile tend to coast and the end game energy is not good enough to engage a manouvering target or target with better kinemetics.
A target that changes direction a lot and is flying fast is the worst target because the long flight time of a very long range missile means the intercept point moves the most with such targets and constantly adjusting to different intercept points wastes energy.
Most very long range missiles use lofted flight profiles to minimise drag and increase flight range to target.
Their speed attacking the target is something like mach 5-6.
Do you think you could dodge a rifle bullet in a car?
If you had warning it was coming and precise range information for the last few seconds till impact you might be able to pull a hard turn, but a 60 kg warhead in the RVV-BD with directional fusing means even if you evade impact with the missile the warhead is going to shatter your aircraft into a hundred pieces anyway.
A diving missile coming at Mach 6 simply would not be visible to the pilot in any sense of time that has meaning. Mach 1 is 320m/s and Mach 6 is almost 2km per second... there is no way you could see the missile 2km away because the rocket motor is burnt out and it is just falling... how far can any aircraft move and turn in the 1 second that missile would need to cross that 2km of distance between you and it?
And remember it is already flying to the point where you are going to be if you don't turn, so pulling hard on the stick and cranking the aircraft into a 9 g turn might only put 5m between your plane and where the missile is going to flash past... a 60kg HE warhead would have a lethal radius of at least 40m. Probably rather more with a directional warhead.
Meteor has still much better NEZ at 100 km compared to all solid fuel missile
The RVV-BD has a NEZ of about 150km...
Just reminded me reading Yefim Gordon book on Mig-31 , where he had mentioned of R-37 as 280 km range missile , the RVV-BD is ofcourse limited to 200 km.
In tests it had a flight distance of 300km to target using an Su-30 for target data because the launch platform was not fitted with the ZASLON-M.
Garry , Ramjet engine enjoys a certain advantage and certain disadvantage as well.
I know.
The advantage are is all the way active burning through out its flight , no coasting here ,
Actually burning all the way is not an advantage at all, it increases the IR signature of the missile and creates a larger IR plume behind the weapon in flight.
it has low volume and low weight hence meteor is a lighter missile for a longer range ,
Actually this is also not great as it means the Meteor is large for its weight... think of how that effects a balloons ballistics...
The reduced weight is good as the motor has to carry less weight, but the larger volume increases drag.
you can stop and burn again a ramjet in flight ( unlike liquid fuel rocket engine ) but you can throttle it and use energy effeciently in different phases of flight ,
This looks a little confused... liquid fuelled rockets certainly can be throttled to control thrust in flight, and throttling the engine makes a lot of sense.
When a rocket first starts off it needs a lot of thrust to get it accelerating and often climbing too. Once it gets to its max speed any extra thrust is wasted, but solid rockets overcome this problem with two types of fuel mix.
The inner layer is high energy fast burning fuel so when the missile is first launched it accelerates quickly, but as it approaches top speed drag increases to the point where it matches the thrust so the speed peaks and then starts to fall as the high energy fuel burns out.
The next layer of fuel is lower energy but burns for much much longer. This second layer of fuel does not accelerate the missile, in fact the speed of the missile will start to reduce, but the slower burning fuel will counter drag and help the missile maintain its speed much longer than it would with a few extra seconds of high energy fuel.
The high thrust fuel might burn out in 4-10 seconds with the lower calorie fuel burning for a minute... the result is a much longer flight range than if it had all high calorie fuel and maybe burned for 12-15 seconds.
Meteor ramjet is again a solid fuel so question of stopping and buring does not arise.
It depends on how the fuel works... a powder delivered to the burning chamber could be stopped and restarted... the throttle could be reduced to the point where it is practically stopped.
Mindstorm here are some data regarding BVR missile that I gathered from Toan , he has been reliable on this front
Interesting that he gives range specifications for dead projects.
I would think dead projects would not achieve such performance figures and then be cancelled.
Like I said above the ramjet powered AAM is a dead end as solid rocket motors can emulate similar range performance in more compact packages... for internal use in 5th gen aircraft weight is not as important as volume...
Any future jet powered AAM from Russia will be scramjet powered, which will be a much more significant step than ramjet.
Very simply it offers the change to greatly increase flight speeds, which makes longer range interception possible as it reduces the time for the target to move out of the engagement area... a mach 8-10 missile really would be a shot from the blue.
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