It’s called a digital autopilot, advanced energy respecting / conserving guidance laws and Lofting / trajectory shaping and probably reoptimizing / mapping the Center of mass / pressure / lift shifting as it though to motor burnout. as well as advances to propellant grain structure & construction techniques, each one of these changes cribs slight percentages that compound together. Or just straight up comparing it to the baseline AIM-9X, which is basically just a -9M with a fancy seeker.
Basically there are a ton of little things that can be done, especially if you set up the showcase scenario to need as little correction as possible, it’s almost certainly a supersonic launch against a faster closing target that does not maneuver, possibly with data-linked sensor providing positional updates throughout flight to avoid being limited by the on board seeker’s resolution.
The -9X-3 is the Block 2Plus and as such revised a ton of stuff, all the -4 did was replace the mechanical INS with a laser ring system, as it was responsible for 80% of BIT failures in the fleet, due to aging components.
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Because they are still using similarly performing motors and propellants since the 80s
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I mean…MICA NGs are said to have an increase in range of over 60% in air to air (80km to 130km) and 100% increase in surface to air (20km to 40km) while maintaining the same body, same dimensions/length/weight. So it isn’t a crazy thing.
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Gaijin: it’s a marketing lie, all Aim-9X variants will have the exact same range as the standard Aim-9L. 😜
I’d believe it if we didn’t have AIM-9M reports on hand that actually quote range values.
https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/PX7CKrwWNGdr
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Yep, though that report is just lock ranges, and not even actual range performance improvements from L to M (if there are any)
They use a similar motor geometry, and with the shift to early Low / no-smoke formulations, the propellant for the -9M likely actually has reduced performance due to lacking aluminum in the mix, or otherwise needing to include a some sort of chemical masking agent, and as such decreasing the ratio of active to inert parts of the motor formulation.
As the main culprit for the smoke is fine particulates of Aluminum oxide being produced preferentially if the relative humidity & temperature was above some value due to the way it acts as a catalyst that favors certain branches of the net equilibrium reaction(s) that occur chemically to generate the gasses used to propel the missile.
The thing is that until fairly recently Aluminum was the best choice for the oxidizer for solid rocket motors components if maximizing performance above all else was needed, and the better options are practically exotic material that are complicated to produce at the scales needed for mass production in comparison.
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Is there a reason the external cockpit screens don’t… match the internal ones?
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I want my blue and yellow ball
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The MICA NG got a different dual pulse motor compared to the older MICA, but even then the brochure only says “up to 40%” and doesn’t give any indication of actual conditions.
Further down it states “double the interception range” which again doesn’t state conditions and certainly doesn’t match the earlier claim of +40%.
All manufacturers will claim to have the best capability and most of their claims are only from a very select used case in which their product is especially good compared to the competition.
Randomly found an image of PGM 500 being displayed next to a EFT. Idk if this got posted here already
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The same that can be found on UK Tornado GR.1/4
Something half way between a glide bomb and an AGM. Can be Laser, TV or IR guided iirc.
Nice find. Where did you stumble upon that?
This looks like an DA.1 Eurofighter
Edit:
Could it be?
found an Picture of the Dubai air Show 1998
https://images.app.goo.gl/p9YVBtGSqShneBXu6
What are those on the bottom left