Alfa

Possibly, but AFAIK the MiG-29S only came about after the break-up of the SU in 1992 - i.e. in the same year that the MiG-29M/K development was suspended and the US started to induct the AIM-120. During the early days of the MiG-29M development, the intention was to run a parallel upgrade program for the "baseline" MiG-29 - bringing it as close as possible to the standard of the -M(i.e. really an early SMT). But this idea was abandoned in order to concentrate funds on the -M development and only upgrade the baseline MiG-29 design to fix the most pressing shortcomings(enter 9.13). I don't if the MiG-29S was a planned continuation of that philosophy or whether it and subsequently the -SM and -SMT was a return to the initial idea for a cost effective alternative to the MiG-29M when this became a no-go.

No never mind the digging - just wondered if it was just a casual comment about it being equivalent to an early version of the AIM-120(which it obviously is) or whether he mentioned anything specific. Ok I thought it was the only difference - partly because the -B came so soon(IIRC only a couple of years) after the induction of the -A. Yes and I think you are right that the -SD may may only be similar to the -AE on the outside - I suspect there is a lot more "under the hood" and that it in reality constitutes a complete re-design. Again I don't know about the warhead, but in addition to the bit about the new seekerhead, I also heard something about new light-weight actuation motors for the aerodynamic control devices.

Yeah I have Dudikoff(except the part about conversion to SMT/Armenia) - the problem is that we don't really know where this information came from originally and since you cannot tell a 9.13S from a "regular" 9.13 externally, its difficult to determine whether they have the radar modification or not :) .

Yes the missile does, but the associated launcher doesn't and if you zoom in(near the middle of the R-77), you can see that it says "АПУ-170" on it......which was the interesting bit about the photo :)

As you can gather from what Esac_mirmidon wrote, the RVV-SD is a little longer than the RVV-AE, but other than that its hard to tell the difference. Yes they use the same AKU-170 ejector rack as the RVV-AE. I believe at an earlier point, there was also an APU-170 rail launcher for the R-77, but I haven't seen any mention of it in recent years - maybe it was deemed unnecessary and abandoned. Edit: photo of MiG-29M(9.15) with R-77 on APU-170 launcher.

Maybe he simply meant it as the first version of the R-77 being an equivalent of the first version of the AIM-120 :) . Yes but on the other hand AFAIK the re-progammable bit was the only difference between the AIM-120A and AIM-120B...no? Yes but I don't know anything about the warhead of the RVV-SD.

I have always been sceptical about the "MiG-29S" actually existing in the Russian inventory. During the development of the MiG-29M(9.15) in the latter part of the eighties, "baseline" MiG-29s(9.12 and 9.13) were modified and used for testing individual components for the MiG-29M - these included the RD-33K engine, the N010 "Zhuk" radar, and R-77 missile. In the case of the latter, several 9.12s had modified N019 radars in order to support the missile. So when the MiG-29M development was halted in 1992(after the collapse of the SU) and the US started to induct the AIM-120, its not difficult to see where MIG got the idea for the "MiG-29S" as a cost effective R-77 compatible alternative. But whether the Russian airforce actually ever got such a version is another matter - its hard to tell since it is visually indistinguishable from the MiG-29(9.13). No - the Su-27 version slated for the R-77 missile was the Su-27M(Su-35), which suffered the same initial fate as the MiG-29M. The first "baseline" Su-27s upgraded(Su-27SM) compatible with the weapon entered service much later - as GG said, around 2004.

There is something to suggest that it actually "entered service" officially in 1994, but that Russia never actually bought any - at least not many, which in turn may have had more to do with not having any aircraft compatible with it back then.

More like an AIM-120B equivalent - the R-77 has a reprogrammable seeker, the AIM-120A didn't. If its using the new 9B-1103M seeker by AGAT(which sounds plausible), then that at least cuts about 6 kg compared to the R-77/RVV-AE - i.e. 16 kg for the 9B-1348E vs. 10 kg for the 9B-1103M.

Not a picture of it on an aircraft, but here is a little bit on the long range RVV-BD from Vympel's web site: http://vympelmkb.com/products/rvv-bd-raketa-klassa-vozduh-vozduh/170/

My thoughts exactly.

Yes and hoping that flying inverted and pulling negative g's could cause it to collapse neatly back into the well along with the rest of the gear sounds a little optimistic IMHO - what is your take on that mvsgas?

Well at 7:56 in the video you can see the damage to the landing gear - the actuator arm has broken off at the top(where attached to the airframe) and is hanging down about a meter or so below the wheel, so I don't see how it would be possible get the landing gear retracted back into the well :) . Anyway, as I understand it, the rationale was that the risk of not being able to control the direction the aircraft during emerg landing was too high - i.e. if it came off the smooth surface of the runway and into soft ground, it could topple over and kill the pilot in the process.

The video itself is an episode from a TV series called "Jagerpiloterne"(The fighter pilots) from 2017, but the actual ejection incident they talk about(and show in-cockpit footage from) took place in 2015. The background for the ejection was that the F-16 in question encountered a blown tire on take-off, which tore the left main landing gear leg apart - they discussed all sorts of possible solutions and emergency landing approaches, but in the end decided that it was just too risky and told the pilot to eject.

Indeed. The "emergency thrust" mode briefly raises the AFB thrust by 300 kgf per engine - its meant for providing safe(unassisted) take-off from the carrier and recovery(e.g in case of a "bolter") . The MiG-29K has it too - at least the old version(9.31) did.

No there were no conditions specified - just maximum reach of radio correction between launch platform(MiG-29) and inflight missile(R-27R). SARH seeker(9B1101K) acquisition range stated at some 20-25 km against RCS=5m2.

What math? :D Possibly - I didn't "do the math" :) . I just thought that the 25 km support reach seemed quite short vs. claimed missile range :hmm: . Yeap :)

You said: Tharos was referring to someone elses post about being beyond DL's range. which the missile will be out of potential energy before that happens. I asked: are you sure?......about the missile being out of energy before that. IIRC a recent development of the the AIM-120(AIM-120D) features a two-way datalink. It seems to me that you have invented your own definition of INS and decided that this isn't present in any air-to-air missile - whereas practically every account for initial stage of flight of e.g. the AMRAAM that I have come across refers to it as being steered by its "inertial navigation system"(INS) with updates transmitted via datalink(we can call it M-link if you prefer) from "host aircraft". Bollocks. Maximum range at which the MiG-29 can provide radio correction to an in-flight R-27R missile.

What I meant was that the aircraft radar operating in STT(which it would when supporting a SARH weapon) is "pinging" the target at short intervals and store a track record in order not to lose lock in case it momentarily fails to locate the target. So while it may momentarily pick up returns from chaff, its unlikely that it will enough to break its lock on the real target since a chaff cloud doesn't behave like an aircraft. Of course range and aspect are factors and I am not saying that chaff cannot affect an aircraft radar in some circumstances, but IMHO it unlikely to fool an aircraft radar in STT tracking a target at range. Chaff is a missile decoy and needs to be "administered" so that it appears between the targeted aircraft/seeker of incoming missile at the right time and combined with evasive manouvering to be effective.

Well according to some sources that could be the case for the R-27R - i.e. that for an R-27R launched from a MiG-29 the datalink range is some 25 km - if you compare this with published range figures for the R-27R(up to some 70 kilometers against a non-manouvering target), it would seem that the missile could outrange the datalink reach by a fairly large margin :)

Are you sure? :) Yes at least for the generation of missiles we are talking about here. No thats incorrect for the R-27R - there is no beam riding involved with its midcourse guidance. The R-27R has an inertial navigation system(INS), which plots the most efficient course to target using proportional navigation method based on target coordinates uploaded to it prior to launch and updates transmitted to it from aircraft radar after launch. At terminal stage( when the target comes within acquisition range of the seeker) guidance switches to SARH operation at which point the target coordinates obtained directly by the seeker are passed to the INS and overrides those sent to it from aircraft radar. So the only way the missile can be affected by chaff during initial stage(while still under midcourse guidance) would be if the aircraft radar is affected by it and transmits faulty target updates to missile INS.

Eh what? :) He was talking about the missile not being affected by chaff while under midcourse guidance.

Don't think of the radar as being able to "see" a target - when tracking in STT it scans a small area around the target - pings the target, gets a return then pings it again and get a new return. Chaff may momentarily present an alternative return, but it does not behave like an aircraft.

For the initial stage of flight, the missile is steered to the target by its onboard inertial navigation system based on a target fix uploaded to it prior to launch and updates transmitted to it via datalink from the aircraft radar after launch - it switches to SARH when the target comes within range of the missile seeker. Well close enough to target for SARH :) . Correct.

The models in question are the MiG-29M and MiG-29K. The "beaver" bit actually refers to the fuselage spine ending in "beaver tail" shape :) - but its correct that they have a larger single piece speedbrake(similar to that of the Su-27) that can be deployed with the gear down. It hasn't - the three "baseline" MiG-29 variants represented in the sim all have the two-piece "swallow tail" type.