well, judjing by FlareFlo’s missile sheet, at 5km alt and speed of 1.0M missiles have these ranges:
MICA-EM - 23331m of range
Derby - 24624m of range
R-Darter - 24884m of range
R-77 - 25382m of range
PL-12 and SD-10 - 26920m of range
aim-120a/b - 28441m of range
R-77-1 - 29143m of range
AAM-4 - 31451m of range
aim-120c-5 - 32355m of range
So, even now aim-120a/b outperform any other missile by around 2-3km of range, R-77-1 would tie that and even slightly outperform by 700m wich is negligible, but when they add aim-120c-5 they would be better than AAM-4 with 32km of range again outperforming by another 3km of range…
I’m going to assume that is against a non-maneuvering target though, the extra weight and G limit of missiles like the R-77-1 will act against it at range more so than something like the AIM-120A, that may be how a missile like the AAM-4 is balanced, it weighs significantly more than the R-77-1 or PL-12 which are missiles that already weigh much more than AIM-120s, MICAs and Derbys
I do believe that even the R-77-1 would underperform against the AIM-120 at range and that kind of leads me back to the original point that they really need to fix the drag issues first, the R-77 needs to find a middle ground between the MICA and AIM-120, it shouldn’t have the range of the 120 as it pulls harder, but it should have more than the MICA as that has thrust vectoring.
In its current state the range is mostly fine without maneuvering but as soon as it turns it bleeds way more speed than it should
yeah, you’re right.
another point we could make is let’s say time to 20km range at 5km alt and 1.0M
Derby - 46 sec
R-Darter - 45 sec
R-77 - 44 sec
Mica-EM - 44 sec
R-77-1 - 37.5 sec
PL-12 - 37 sec
AIM-120A/B - 33.5 sec
AIM-120C-5 - 32.5 sec
AAM-4 - 32.5 sec
we can also look at how much speed missiles have at that time:
Derby ~ 120 m/s
R-Darter ~ 124 m/s
R-77 ~ 135 m/s
Mica-EM ~ 130 m/s
R-77-1 ~ 160 m/s
PL-12 ~ 180 m/s
AIM-120A/B ~ 220 m/s
AIM-120C-5 ~ 225 m/s
AAM-4 ~ 230 m/s
You can imagine how much difference that would make trying to hit a moving target as well, you could probably dodge most of those missiles kinematically but much less likely for the top 3
I wonder what it would look like if you brought it down to 15 or even 10km
at 5km alt and 1.0m time to 15km and speed at impact:
Derby ~ 22.5s and 240m/s
R-Darter ~ 22s and 250m/s
R-77 ~ 23s and 250m/s
Mica-EM ~ 21.5s and 260m/s
R-77-1 ~ 20s and 310m/s
PL-12 ~ 20s and 325m/s
AIM-120A/B ~ 19s and 360m/s
AIM-120C-5 ~ 19s and 370m/s
AAM-4 ~ 19s and 365m/s
No Darter is ever making a shot past 20km…They weigh more than the Derby.
Unless that aircraft is flying right at you at mach 2.0 then maybe. But all they have to do is just turn slightly and the missile is trashed.