Russian air-to-air missiles & bizarre canards

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Winston

Winston

Lorenzo von Matterhorn
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Great report:

The Russian Philosophy of Beyond Visual Range Air Combat
Technical Report APA-TR-2008-0301
by Dr Carlo Kopp, AFAIAA, SMIEEE, PEng

https://www.ausairpower.net/APA-Rus-BVR-AAM.html

And what's the advantage of these bizarre canards?:

Vympel-R-27R+R-27T-1S.jpg
 
Their function is...

To look scary...

Mission Accomplished...:cool:
 
No clue about the profile. Need some actual fin design experts to weigh in on that one.

Maybe Jim Jarvis should try that style on his guidance section next time round!

That article has some great side profiles for scale work though
 
Nytrunner said:
No clue about the profile. Need some actual fin design experts to weigh in on that one.

Maybe Jim Jarvis should try that style on his guidance section next time round!

That article has some great side profiles for scale work though
Click to expand...
On a possible advantage, the only thing I can think of isn't an aerodynamic drag reduction one, it would be to move the greatest control surface area away from the center of rotation for maximum torque perhaps resulting in faster roll rates. But if it's the thing to do, does anyone else know of any other nations who do that?
 
Winston said:
Great report:

The Russian Philosophy of Beyond Visual Range Air Combat
Technical Report APA-TR-2008-0301
by Dr Carlo Kopp, AFAIAA, SMIEEE, PEng

https://www.ausairpower.net/APA-Rus-BVR-AAM.html

And what's the advantage of these bizarre canards?:

Vympel-R-27R+R-27T-1S.jpg
Click to expand...

You can see the circles at the base of the fin which I assume is for some kind of servo to make it a control surface...

Failing that, maybe they are that large to make more shrapnel? ;)
 
Early Italian Sea Killer mk1 anti ship (Marte mk1) prototypes had weird forward fins like that.

I remember doing CAD/OpenRocket work off of some drawings a guy sent me that wanted to build one semi scale for certification. I think he abandoned that project because of the crazy stability issues. I'll see if I can dig out that drawing.
 
snrkl said:
You can see the circles at the base of the fin which I assume is for some kind of servo to make it a control surface...

Failing that, maybe they are that large to make more shrapnel? ;)
Click to expand...
I knew that they were rotating control surfaces, it's their shape that's unusual with the root of the canard being shorter than the tip.
 
Nytrunner said:
Early Italian Sea Killer mk1 anti ship (Marte mk1) prototypes had weird forward fins like that.
Click to expand...
Hmmm, an anti-ship missile wouldn't need to roll rapidly for maneuvering because of its slow target, so I'm back to wondering about the advantage of this orientation.
 
Could be why the Marte mk2 and Marte ER have normal trapezoidal fins now (nike smoke style). Its difficult to find images of the original sea killer.
 
I think you will find it gets more area out near the tip of the fin out in the relatively clean air when the AoA isn't axial, so the missile handles directional changes faster and more predictably. As a consequence of the profile it will put a lot of bending moment at the hub and also be more inclined to flutter, but spending a bit more mass to alleviate these is an easy design decision if direction change performance is the goal. It suggests to me is is very capable of some extremely quick direction changes.

Notice also the strakes up near the front that are trying to feed air in a more controlled manner over the steerable fins when the missile is not at zero AoA.

The forward-swept leading edge also helps with aerodynamic performance. Forward-swept wings on aircraft are also problematic due to flutter and are thus not worthwhile.
 
OverTheTop said:
I think you will find it gets more area out near the tip of the fin out in the relatively clean air when the AoA isn't axial, so the missile handles directional changes faster and more predictably. As a consequence of the profile it will put a lot of bending moment at the hub and also be more inclined to flutter, but spending a bit more mass to alleviate these is an easy design decision if direction change performance is the goal. It suggests to me is is very capable of some extremely quick direction changes.

Notice also the strakes up near the front that are trying to feed air in a more controlled manner over the steerable fins when the missile is not at zero AoA.

The forward-swept leading edge also helps with aerodynamic performance. Forward-swept wings on aircraft are also problematic due to flutter and are thus not worthwhile.
Click to expand...
Sounds good to me! I wonder why they aren't more commonly used then. Advantages very specific to particular missile flight characteristics? Found not to be worth some other tradeoff(s) required?
 
I saw that and was reminded of the thunderceptor, but that had an inverse tapered wing to address pitch up issues.

800px-XF91-21republic.jpg
 
Winston said:
Sounds good to me! I wonder why they aren't more commonly used then. Advantages very specific to particular missile flight characteristics? Found not to be worth some other tradeoff(s) required?
Click to expand...

It makes sense that an air-to-air missile would need to make rapid turns. If it misses the target plane when they were head-on to each other, it needs to turn quickly to chase the target down. Also, if the target plane sees the missile coming, it's probably going to maneuver and the missile wants to chase it.
 
They remind me of the fins on my Chester's Cheeto Chaser III rocket, second from the bottom in the photo.

IMG_2436.jpg




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OverTheTop said:
I think you will find it gets more area out near the tip of the fin out in the relatively clean air when the AoA isn't axial, so the missile handles directional changes faster and more predictably. As a consequence of the profile it will put a lot of bending moment at the hub and also be more inclined to flutter, but spending a bit more mass to alleviate these is an easy design decision if direction change performance is the goal. It suggests to me is is very capable of some extremely quick direction changes.

Notice also the strakes up near the front that are trying to feed air in a more controlled manner over the steerable fins when the missile is not at zero AoA.

The forward-swept leading edge also helps with aerodynamic performance. Forward-swept wings on aircraft are also problematic due to flutter and are thus not worthwhile.
Click to expand...

My thoughts too. and to quote Adam (Savage) "Plausible"
 

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