Summary
Airborne Warfare
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Extract
A decade of opportunities.
As the transatlantic competition in guided weapons grows to match that between Airbus and Boeing in commercial transports, the coming decade will provide a chance for the Raytheon AIM-120 to dominate international sales in the medium-range air-to-air category, before the MBDA Meteor becomes available. Conversely, the decade will provide an opportunity for the BGT Iris-T and MBDA Asraam (and the Kentron A-Darter as well as the rumoured Rafael Python 5) to make a showing in the short-range field.
Whether or not Russia is currently the world-leader in air-to-air guided missiles, it is indisputable that all the significant advances taking place in this field in the West have been triggered by unforseen Russian developments. The shocks began when the Soviets equipped helicopters with lightweight air-to-air missiles in the early 1980s. Surprises continued in the 1990s with the discoveries that, firstly, Russian dogfight missiles were far superior to the Western World's, and secondly that the sa...See the full content of this document
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