Generally speaking, the air belt is the best for DEFA (unless you want to do ground attack, but these cannons are not really suitable for that).
For your previous question about blackouts, it improves a lot with the level of the crew and when you unlock the anti-G suit. On the other hand, it remains a delta wing and it is possible to blackout even if everything is maxed out.
So the missile has one of the shortest guidance start times with 0.5s (among ARH missiles) so in theory you can use it at short distance, however you have to take into account that the missile has to accelerate for a time. So it will entirely depend on the conditions in which you fire it, if it is on a Head On it should work but if the plane is heading at 90° to your trajectory it probably won’t work
Personally, I try not to use it for less than 4 or 5 kilometers, favoring the Magic 2 (except in special conditions and Head On)
Isn’t that guidance delay the worst of all the late SARH missiles other than the e2? Aim 7m/f start ramping up immediately from 0 to 1 second while the 27r-er has a guidance ramp up form 0.35 to 0.4 seconds
This time is not the worst, the only missiles that start guiding faster are the R-27s as you said, but all the other missiles take either the same time or more so it’s okay.
that is a super nice feature! I wonder how the hell it works irl, do they sneak around air shows and write down jets radar signature or something? haha