Hi folks!
I’ve started having a look at how air to air missiles compare regarding their flight dynamics. In WT’s stats card we get every missiles max. speed and overload, but those interacting values are not so intuitively interpretable.
So I tried a new approach in displaying those flight dynamics!
What we know of each missile is its final speed, as well as its maximal load, and from those values we can calculate the turn radius.
There are however limitations, which lead to simplifications in my analysis (unfold to get a more in-detail view on my analysis and its simplifications):
Spoiler
For starters, the speed is documented in WT as Mach, which is dependent on air density, which is dependent on air temperature. In my analysis, I chose an air temperature of 0°, which is for example typical for an altitude of 4000-5000 meters, but that varies stongly with geographical location, season, etc.
Doesn’t matter too much as it’s a comparison only, so the same assumption is made for all compared missiles.
Then - more relevant - my analysis does not take into account the acceleration (and deceleration) of the missiles, as I currently have no access to this information. Also, acceleration is variable and strongly dependent on the missile type: Some missiles maybe have a fast acceleration until burnout, then decelerate for the rest of their flight time. Others have a longer sustained burn. And to make matters even more complicated, the speed of the aircraft firing the missile plays into this dynamic as well, of course! All this can not be covered by my very simple model.
Still, even with these simplifications, my analysis allows at least a rough comparison between the flight dynamics and capabilities of the missiles.
The graph I made shows the situation 5 seconds after launch, assuming the missile turning with is max. possible overload, at maximum speed. The firing aircraft is at the origin of the coordinate system (lower left corner), the missiles flying a turn to the right.
A first graph (more will follow) shows a comparison of earlier IR-guided AAM’s, all only Rear-aspect capable:
As we can well see, the missiles performances vary a lot:
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There are a few very fast but not agile missiles like Red Top, Firestreak, AIM-9E and R530E. Those are very well suited against far away targets than maneuver little.
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Especially two types excel in both speed and agility: The Magic 1 an the R-60: Those are suitable to engage even strongly maneuvering targets.
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A third group are moderately fast and agile, thus obviosuly suitable for moderately maneuvering targets. Those comprise the majority of early Sidewinder variants and derivatives. Note that especially in this group significant differences exist in regard of their seekers: Earlier missiles have only a caged seeker (AIM-9B/D, Shafrir 1,…), which makes them much easier to evade, while missiles with uncaged seekers are easier to use and more difficult to evade.
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An exotic case in more than one regard is the SRAAM: It has a very short launch range of only 2.4km, which - even with its ok speed - limits its use drastically, resulting in a very limited engagement envelope compared to any other IR-guided AAMs. It is on one hand blessed with a very large field of view of its uncaged seeker, but as the agility is a function of speed and overload, its agility is roughly the equivalent of the AIM-9B, but at significantly lower useable engagement distance.
Edit: Updated with missing missiles: R-13M, R-13M1, PL-5B
