Warpig to Seagull :

 

ASRAAM achieved a kill on a target more than 3 miles behind the firing plane. That's hardly a demonstration a fast turning rate.

But surely a demonstration of having adequate off-boresight capability?

The fact remains that the British are adding TVC to their ASRAAM-derived CAMM. If it was able to achieve turn rate >100°/s during boost phase like MICA it wouldn't be necessary.

I've never said the system is superior to every competitor in every area, merely that it was world-class.

But there is no way that a missile with only tail control surfaces is going to achieve such rates.

It's a trade-off, you can have maximal agility, or maximal speed and range, or half and half, ASRAAM has a flight profile that is acceptable to two major Air-Forces who presumably have reason to think they will be effective in the majority of situations they would be used in.

 

Never said that it didn't perform decently. Only that its development process and abilities showed what I'd call (to avoid being rude agin) a "lack of consistency". It has an excellent engine but no TVC, a very good seeker that can't be used for long periods because of an outdated cooling solution, an INS and large range but no data link. That's like doing 90% of the work and then stopping short of your goal (in this case because the MoD is tired of funding the program).

 

If they retrofit the CAMM upgrades to the ASRAAM, then it will have a serious shot at being the best IR missile in the world. Until then it will remain an odd bird with lots of unrealized potential.

 

MICA has other issues (mainly with the IR seeker that seems to be a generation behind its competitors) but is a more "balanced" weapon (for lack of a better word). It's more expensive too.

I'm making the assumption that Herald has some knowledge of the degree of failures, I say this only because I don't think the information to prove otherwise is in the public domain, i.e. you can neither prove nor disprove what he says but for what it's worth, in this instance I find it quite possible he has specific knowledge available?

 

even if that statement was correct (which it isn't) when a missiles seeker activates and its target is several km away outside its FOV or RANGE you would surely conceed that having a working update system

 

Also, for a completely different type of terminal intercept consider Starstreak HVM.

 

Beam riding is another classic navigation law but my answer was within the context of Herald trashtalking MICA because the RF & IR version use (according to him) exactly the same navigation law when closing on their target which is somehow a design flaw because IR missile should "chase" their target while RF "meet" them and IR missile use "scalar" data while RF designed by "real men" should use "3D vector" data.

Which is complete nonsense as an IR missile (be it MICA IR, Sidewinder, ASRAAM) will use the bearing towards its target and a proportional navigation law to close on it while a RF missile (be it AMRAAM, MICA RF, Aster) will use bearing towards its target and a proportional navigation law to close on it.

 

Here is my guess as to what he may have meant, please let me know if I am completely wrong, I certainly don't present this as expert opinion. 

Consider a mouse cursor moving vertically (on a 2d screen), with IR you can tell that it is moving relative to the X/Y-axis of the missile (equivalent to the area on your monitor) but not nearly so accurately whether (and in what direction) it is moving in the Z axis, as a result you have less data about the target location, (range) and have to maneuver more (sidewinder flight profile continually adjusting to worst-possible target location) in order to keep the target in the same location relative to the missile XY plane (for example, if the target is maneuvering "up" and "away" (relative to seeker), in reality, you wouldn't need to maneuver as much as long as you had the ability to discriminate that the target was not pulling high-G towards and outside the missile FOV, whereas with radar you maneuver to a future location that exists in three dimensions and does not simply rely on the image in the seeker head growing larger. In other words, RF missiles have an added layer of knowledge about the target, and presumably a more efficient guidance procedure that doesn't overcompensate for the lack of Z-depth data available. Consider that IR seeker-head pixel resolution is tiny and you compound the problem. (again, if I am wrong I would like to know why (other than "because you know f-all" insults)).

 

The only potential difference is that the RF missile, IF it's confident on its target range information, can attempt to evaluate its target acceleration and compensate for it. But that's a dangerous game (overestimate the acceleration by more than 25% and the miss distance becomes greater than vanilla pronav).

 Not just acceleration but (as above), a 3D vector towards the target using an increased amount of knowledge about target speed, heading, and direction relative to seeker head. (Consider why we are bifocal, and the limitations of catching a ball with one eye.)

GF made a point about a peregrine falcon having no proportional lead logic

 

Are you so sure it doesn't? After a bit a googling I found that according to medical research, birds of prey have a maximal acuity vision area in their eye that point sideways (40 degrees to the side for the peregrine falcon) and spiral during the dive to keep the target on this area.. This is in fact a basic form of proportional navigation.

I presumed that GF would only make such a statement if he had specific knowledge, I was considering this myself for a while and concluded that it was a good excuse to watch my local pair of wild peregrines, if I find out conclusively and record it I will let you know. Pigeons flying horizontally along cliff faces make ideal subject matters in this regard.

 

 

Fascinating stuff.

One of the most amazing creatures on this planet.

 

I conclude the best explanation is a glitch in the processing somewherein the flight control system that leads to the HUD display

"...you come off like a giant fanboy."

 

 

He IS a giant Fanboi, that's his whole freak'n problem!  In his world there is ONLY the Rafale, nothing else compares.  You might as well ask a Nazi to stop hating Jews and come to your friend's Bar Mitzvah.....It's not going to happen.

 

The sequence starts at 5:18 of the video.  The first frame we see flashes the "Release Stick" message and shows 8.6G.  It stays in the high 8s (8.6-8.7) for a second, jumps to 10.something (apparently 10.0) for less than a second and about at the same time that the "Release Stick" message flashes again, and then the Gs jump back to the high 8s and for the next few seconds climb up to 9.0 and 9.1, then back into the high 8s.

 

As I recall, Seagull told us the soft limit was 8G.  It loks to me like the pilot basically was trying to execute a 9G turn.  Apparently he went into that turn, overrode the soft limit, received the warning which appears to be at least a pair of flashes of the "Release Stick" message, and kept the Gs at about 9G for several seconds.  During that time, the G reading always seemed to change by basically one tenth a G at a time--except for the fraction of a second when it jumped more than 1G and then jumped back again to the same relatively constant almost-9G level maintained throughout that turn.

 

The 10.0G reading seems pretty spurious to me.  However, again, I do not doubt that it could be done, it's just that this example seems odd.

 

""you frequently post crap, you are frequently shown to have posted crap, and yet you frequently refuse to admit it's crap, and you frequently repeat the same debunked crap""

 

What crap ? My personal doc on Rafale is HUGE and is made mostly with official papers and studies from various French organisation like the French MoD , Dassault , the FAF and MN ,Thalès , Snecma , etc . What I post , I can back up .

It is the vast majority of the posters who "think" that I am bluffing when I 'm not . If you wanna talk about crap , ask poster(s) like Herald , Shooter , Rufus , etc . I rarely read anything true from them on Rafale ...

 

How many times here on SP we can read that the Rafale is "ok" , it is a "rather good 4th gen fighter" , it has "nothing special" , its radar is crap , its missiles are crap , its sensor fusion is nothing new , its engines are weak and the aircraft is underpowered , its EW suite is not better than the ones on the F-teens , etc ...

This is all highly innacurate ! All the datas I have prove the opposite !

Keep shooting at the messenger as long as you want , it will not change a thing . I remember when 6 or 7 years ago I was reading here on SP that the Rafale F3 would never exist or fly and if it was going to fly , the F-35 would already be there with all its gizmos . Well , who was right ? (rolling eyes)

The F3 is operational and flying with the French Navy when the F-35 is still a problem child prototype .

The problem I have is when I read non sense like (from DA) :

""TVC was a part of the design and is WHY it will turn circles around opponents even into supersonic regions."" 

 

Excuse me DA , but this is BS . The F-22 has been waxed in dogfight by Typhoon and EVEN by F-16 I believe .

 

 

 

 

 

""F-5's and A-4's used to beat F-14's all the time in training BW""

 

Thank you . The reason is that both aircraft were better fliers in turning dogfight . Same story with the Eagle being waxed by the Falcon , etc .

But of course , the F-22 can 't be beaten because it is the F-22 , isn 'it DA ???