Accurately modelling the performance metrics of the PL-12/SD-10A BVR missile to narrow the gap to the AIM-120C-5 - Compiling data

A meteor is still slow compared to a missile that burns all/most of it’s energy right away (and then doing terminal in the case of dual pulse) so instead of transiting at Mach 4+ while at range, a meteor may only transit at Mach 2 let’s say. That’s a speed difference of half, which means it’ll take twice as long for the Meteor to get to an effective target position.

That means if the enemy it was fired at goes into an offensive crank, the missile will have to lead significantly more due to the speed difference when compared to a missile fired at the meteor carrying aircraft if they similarly went into a crank.

It isn’t that the missile is objectively slow, it’s that the missile is comparatively slow in transit speeds because of how it burns the motor to maximize PoK during Terminal. That gives it more of a tactical disadvantage when the missile cannot be guided by something other than the carrying aircraft, similar to the disparity between using an AIM-7 compared to the R-27ER. The 27ER arrives on target much sooner and leaves the AIM-7 dead in the water. In this case both missiles have their own seeker for terminal, however, it has to be guided to that intercept point first.

That also extends to other missiles like the PL-12 for example. The Meteor will take longer to get to a target simply because it transits slower than a PL-12 at range.

mach 2 is significantly below any public number for the meteor(most public numbers over around mach4/+), and the speed matters so much in the case of aim7 and r27er because they require constant guidance from the launching aircraft, in the case of a fox 3 speed is of much less significance if the missile is capable of mach 2+, and slower acceleration is irrelevant when the missile is fired well before the opponents missile because it outranges it

That’s referring to TOP speed, which is usually during terminal. It cannot do that top speed the entire transit time because of how the motor burns, and there’s no way the thing carries enough fuel to do Mach 4 the entire time while in atmosphere AND achieve similar ranges when in a roughly similar body to the AIM-120. Simply put.

true but mach 2 is a lowball to say the least, and mach 4+ is the public number.

thats the number to go off, you can guess that the speed varies during flight time(slower acceleration because its a ramjet), but from that to say that it drops to half its publicly reported max speed is a massive stretch to say the least.

Everybody is talking about meteor and PL-15, and nobody remember PL-12 and AIM120C5…
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