SD-10 vs AIM-120 (Latest versions)

[rockstarIN]

Is new ARMRAAM versions is using ramjet technology?

If yes, did they already field it with their fighters?

So far I think, Ramjet powered BVRs are under testing. ARMRAAM, Meteor and R-77new versions, yet to integrate to the fighters..

 

[jagjitnatt]

is there any ways to keep the range intact by suppose by increasing fuel by extending the missile size/diameter or by any other means .

Range can be increased, but that requires structural changes, and much more propellant since adding more propellant will also add more weight, and that requires more thrust to counter.

This is the reason AAMs are not used as SAMs in most cases. Also that most AAMs and shorter SAMs coast in their final phase, and don't have their engines on. So this further reduces their chance to maneuver.

 

[MZUBAIR]

While some confusion remains about designations, most sources identify the SD-10 and PL-12 as the
same missile, China's equivalent to the AMRAAM. This weapon is in sizing and configuration very similar
to the AIM-120A, but employs a unique tail planform. Equipped with an active radar seeker, and datalink
aided inertial midcourse guidance, this missile is a credible player against the AMRAAM and R-77 series.
The indigenous AMR-1 active seeker is identified with the PL-12, and numerous reports exist claiming that
it is a derivative of the Russian Agat 9B-1348E seeker package used in the R-77 series. The production
status of the PL-12 is unclear, but the missile has been claimed as a future weapon for the indigenous J-
10 fighter and the Su-27SK and Su-30, replacing imported R-77s on the latter. There is little doubt that
the PL-12 closes most of the technology gap between Chinese built BVR missiles and in service Western
BVR missiles.

Source

 

[jagjitnatt]

What i love about this missile is its ability to go both active or passive, its certinely going to make the JF17 even more lethal. Its only logical to assume at the pace China is progressing in every field, they are producing missiles as good as Russia and in future they will outclass every country except the United States.

Well, it was not a surprise to me when they said it has a dual mode seeker, because the seeker used in SD-10 is a seeker form R-77 missile, and R-77 missile has passive as well as active radar modes.
This allows the missile to be used as an anti-radiation missile.

 

[rockstarIN]

Well, it was not a surprise to me when they said it has a dual mode seeker, because the seeker used in SD-10 is a seeker form R-77 missile, and R-77 missile has passive as well as active radar modes.
This allows the missile to be used as an anti-radiation missile.

You mean to say Russians gave out their technology or they reverse engineered?

 

[jagjitnatt]

You mean to say Russians gave out their technology or they reverse engineered?

Russians sold R77s to China, and China reverse engineered.
Earlier it directly used the seeker of R-77 on its missiles, and now working on its own seekers.

 

[Dazzler]

That is SUPER optimism according to me.
If that is the case, then SD-10C will be 200 km, and SD-10D will be 250 km, and soon we will have missiles that will have 500 km range. lol.

Range doesn't always increase in newer versions. There is a limit after which increasing range requires a lot of technical research, and for every km of range increased, the cost of research starts to increase 5x.

So SD-10A = 70kms, and at max SD-10B = 90 kms

Judging by history, my optimism has been closer to reality so i am confident this time around it will be no different. By the way, sd-10a does have a range of 90-100 km as per my source in PAF and this variant was tested on JFT not too long ago. B variant is to have a more powerful motor with new seeker and range to be reached as per PLAAF and PAF is at least 140 km.


Regards

 

[SomeGuy]

You mean to say Russians gave out their technology or they reverse engineered?

A combination of joint development, tech transfer and further R&D.

CATIC is known to be developing X-band and Ku-band active radar seekers, which may be intended for the PL-12. However the latest reports confirm that China has been co-operating closely with Russia's AGAT Research Institute, based in Moscow, and that AGAT is the source of the PL-12's essential active seeker. This joint development effort (perhaps with the name 'Project 129') has reportedly seen the supply of AGAT's 9B-1348 active-radar seeker (developed for the Vympel R-77, AA-12 'Adder') to China for integration with the Chinese-developed missile. Alternatively, technology from AGAT's 9B-1103M seeker family may be offered to China. Russia is also the source for the missile's inertial navigation system and datalink.

PL-12 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[TaimiKhan]

Judging by history, my optimism has been closer to reality so i am confident this time around it will be no different. By the way, sd-10a does have a range of 90-100 km as per my source in PAF and this variant was tested on JFT not too long ago. B variant is to have a more powerful motor with new seeker and range to be reached as per PLAAF and PAF is at least 140 km.


Regards

Problem with people is that they don't employ sometimes the common sense, thus they stick to one thing and don't show flexibility.

About the range of SD-10A, its common sense to get an idea from the official figures shown at international air or defence related shows, the Chinese give the range as >70KM, not as =70KM, meaning its greater or equal to 70KM, again meaning the real range has been not classified, rather the original user may get to know what the real range is. Even JDW had in some of its articles quoted the 80KM range, some stuck with the 70KM range, and then 1-2 years back we started to hear the 100Km mark.

We have to remember, that the SD-10A / PL-12 has just recently entered the CAF, the pictures which we would use to see were of the missiles given to operational units for testing and evaluation and most probably in 2010 the first operational batch of PL-12s were inducted in the CAF. The missile program was started way back in this early decade or in last decade and since then we have been hearing the 70KM range figure. Its ironic that a missile in developed is quoted to have a range of 70KM back in 2001-02 is still having a range of 70KM in 2009-10 after 8 years of development when its being officially inducted, hard to believe that. And as said, the Chinse have themselves given the answer with the addition of this > figure in the official presentation, meaning the missile can go farther.

I have no idea, why people become so rigid and can't see some of the simple facts infront of them.

I have been hearing some pretty cool things about the PAF version of SD-10, hope the data link of SD-10 works smoothly with JF-17s western communication / data link, would be one good experience for PAF to do the integration.

 

[BATMAN]

Russians sold R77s to China, and China reverse engineered.
Earlier it directly used the seeker of R-77 on its missiles, and now working on its own seekers.

Does SD-10 look like R-77 to you?
What do you really imply with term 'reverse engineer'?
China is working on every product you name!

I think you get satidfied by down playing any development by China and Pakistan.
Sorry to say, seems India have copy righted word 'Indigenous'.

 

[jagjitnatt]

Does SD-10 look like R-77 to you?
What do you really imply with term 'reverse engineer'?
China is working on every product you name!

I think you get satidfied by down playing any development by China and Pakistan.
Sorry to say, seems India have copy righted word 'Indigenous'.

I was talking about the seeker. Go read up something on it. Even chinese sites claim it is from the R-77.

 

[Tempest II]

... ... the Chinese give the range as >70KM, not as =70KM, meaning its greater or equal to 70KM, again meaning the real range has been not classified, rather the original user may get to know what the real range is. Even JDW had in some of its articles quoted the 80KM range, some stuck with the 70KM range, and then 1-2 years back we started to hear the 100Km mark.

... ... Its ironic that a missile in developed is quoted to have a range of 70KM back in 2001-02 is still having a range of 70KM in 2009-10 after 8 years of development when its being officially inducted, hard to believe that. And as said, the Chinse have themselves given the answer with the addition of this > figure in the official presentation, meaning the missile can go farther. ... ...

Exactly my logic too and I agree with you. I however take it further qoute the PLA news article saying J-10s were armed with missiles with a range greather than 100km.

Here is a second source:
PLA Air to Air Missiles and the AIM-120C is quoted as having a range of 110km in some of its versions.

The missile is widely credited with superior range performance to the AIM-120A-C variants.

 

[Tempest II]

One more post: I took this from acig.org. This is from April 2004 and apparently it was an interview with the SD-10 designer. The original SD-10 was superior to the R-77 and the AIM-120 A/B and was very close to the AIM-120C. So the fact that the SD-10A is superior to AIM-120C should be no suprise!!

Also note that for ALL THE MISSILES the the targets are approaching at greather than Mach 1.2. So for a missile with a max speed of Mach 4, the target will be hit at about 70% of the given max range. I say 70% because the missile does not travel at Mach 4, the average speed for it flight is a lot less.

Some translations and points discovered by Hyperwarp in the AFM concerning an magazine published article of an interview with the designer of the SD-10.

"Efective combat altitude 0-25Km.
Ability to engage target 10kms higher or lower than launch altitude.
Range at 10Km altitude at M1.2 target at same altitude =70Km.
No escape zone for F-16 type target = 35-45km
Max overload=38G, Speed =4M
Plans to be also used as SAM system."

"Designer was asked at end to rate BVR AAMs. He rated Meteor as best BVR AAM, then AIM-120C, then his SD-10, then AIM-120A/B, R-77, Skyflash at equal fourth, then Derby, and last of all, MICA."

"What the designer said is that they used the same way AIM-120 calculated its range. target and launch aircraft flying at each other at 1.2 mach and at 10000 metres. The range is 70 km under such circumstance.
Also interesting is the designer basically said the russians "cheated" with R-77, as they calculated the max range with target and launcher flying at each other at 1.5 mach and at 12000 metres altitude."

A more detailed translation by Dongdong posted in the AFM forums:

"I just bought the BING GONG KE JI magazine with the SD-10 designer interview. The interview is pretty informative. Add my points for translation:

Ahout the max shot range:
The Deputy Chief Designer of SD-10 said: The parameter of “max range” is determined by the relative position of missile’s carrier and the target aircraft. The assumed conditions by various countries are different. So what the Russian said the max range 100Km may not be better than what we said the max range 70Km. The max range 70Km in SD-10 marketing promotion brochure is measured under the condition that both the missile’s carrier and the target aircraft are flying at 10Km’s altitude, both the missile carrier’s velocity and target’s velocity are 1.2Mach, their flying direction is reverse(head to head). AIM120’s test condition is similar to SD-10. However Russian’s propaganda is a little more exaggerated. For example, R-77’s test condition is: carrier and target are flying at 20Km’s altitude; each has 1.5M’s velocity, head to head flying. Under such a condition, the max range is 100Km. The problem is higher altitude means less aerodynamic resistance, plus the faster velocity for both the carrier and the target. The range is naturally longer. So you shouldn’t only consider parameters isolated with each other. In fact, our SD-10’s range is better than AIM-120A/B, a litter less than AIM-120C, almost same as R-77’s.

About ranking MRAAM:
Designer : It’s not easy to rank …..Various persons have various standards…
First of all, Euro’s Meteor should be No.1. This missile’s performance is very advanced, its range reaches 160Km.It belongs to next generation missiles. Next, I think the AIM-120C is more advanced. For original AIM-120 missile, whatever components, materials and craft are world first class. Now it is upgraded to Type C, it makes new progress on range, precision and anti-jamming capability. Following, It should be our SD-10. Then AIM-120A/B, R-77, Active Skyflash at equal fourth. Then Israel’s Derby, Derby has a comparable overall performance with the above missiles, but its range is relatively short. Last of all, MICA, its tech is not bad, however it’s a tradeoff between BVR and dogfight, so is naturally inferior to dedicated MRAAM.

Reporter asked : Our SD-10 has a good ranking. Why do you say our SD-10 is more advanced than R-77?
Designer: We adopted some technologies more advanced than R-77’s, so SD-10’s overall performance is better than R-77’s. For instance, our strap-down initial navigation system, signal processing system are more advanced than R-77’s. Our missile was developed relatively later than R-77.Some new technologies were not mature when R-77 was developed, so R-77 didn’t use the new technologies, but when SD-10 was developed, the new technologies became mature, so we adopted the new technologies in SD-10.

SD-10’s milestones:
Designer: We started the pre-research work for advanced radar guidance air to air missile in mid of 1980….
Phase1:mid of 1980 to beginning of 1990, key technologies study
Phase2;Started from mid of 1990, sub-systems development
Phase3:Started from end of 1990, missile overall performance verification test
Phase4:After entering 21st century, demo verification test
Now, the development of SD-10 has been completed."

 

[Manticore]

some missile ranges..
http://www.defence.pk/forums/wmd-missiles/19447-air-air-missiles-command-air-3.html#post1356238

 

[fatman17]

PL-12/SD-10 (courtesy of FK, ZC, SZX, hxqy)

PL-12's export version is called SD-10 (SD-10A as the improved version) and was first revealed to the public during the 2002 Zhuhai Airshow. PL-12 (K/AKK-12?) has been under development at LETRI/607 Institute since early 90s. It was initially expected to be in the same class as AIM-120A and its active seeker may have evolved from the earlier AMR-1 design (R-129? based on Russian 9B-1348 seeker & datalink for R-77). Its tailfins appear to have fin tips as well as the leading edges of the fin root cropped. These specially designed tailfins are believed to possess lower drag for greater speed and higher torque for better maneuverability. Two datalink antennas can be seen next to the nozzle for mid-course correction. Several dielectric strips are seen along the middle warhead section which may house the radio proximity fuse. PL-12 completed its development test in December 2004 and was certified in 2005. Currently it is in the service with J-8F, J-10 and J-11B. In addition it is expected to equip JF-17/FC-1 currently entering service with PAF. Some specifications of SD-10: length 3,850mm, diameter 203mm, wing span 674mm, weight 180kg, max g-load 38g, max speed 4M, max range 70km. Recently produced PL-12 is expected to feature an improved seeker with new digital processor and SINS. The improved PL-12 (PL-12A?) is thought to be comparable to American AIM-120C4. The latest news (November 2010) suggested that PL-12 may feature an active/passive dual mode seeker in order to achieve greater ECCM capability and kill probability. Several improved versions have been under development at 607 Institute, including PL-12B with improved guidance system, PL-12C with foldable tailfins for internal carriage by the 4th generation fighters (e.g. J-20) and PL-12D with a belly air inlet and a ramjet motor for long range attack similar to PL-21.

- Last Updated 1/2/11