MBDA Mistral

Polychop's Mistral faces several inconsistencies with other missiles in DCS.

1.) Let's compare to the AIM-9X. The Mistral's seeker slew rate is 99.9 in comparison to the AIM-9X's 1.10(Om_viz), essentially meaning that no target could ever cross the missile's line of sight quickly enough to break the seeker's "lock". In fairness, ED's mistral shares the same "99.9" value for this, however not for the other parameters that are related.

2.) While it checks the boxes for stated maximum speed and effective range (1827-1854 ktas and 6km max firing distance on a cold target at 450 ktas from 2.4km altitude), it does so with a self destruction limitation while still holding over 1350 ktas, which seems unlikely, but plausible.

3.) It appears to have 10% of the drag that the AIM-9X has, which, while it does seem to allow it to reach the desired parameters, does so in a way that is potentially incorrect.

ED's AIM-9X Cx Values: 0.04, 0.08, 0.02, 0.05, 1.2, 1.0

Polychop's Mistral Cx Values: 0.004, 0.008, 0.004, 0.012, 0.004, 1.2,

ED's Mistral Cx Values: 1, 0.45, 1.1, 0.65, 1.2, 1.86

According to MBDA's website, the Mistral has a stated top speed of 930 m/s (1807 knots), which matches quite closely with that of polychop's mistral in game. It does not state the maximum effective range, though other unofficial sources claim an effective range of 5-6km, which matches with what can be seen in game depending on how you interpret that. (Maximum effective range to impact/firing, at a hot/cold target, at what target airspeed, etc.) ED's mistral in comparison seems to only achieve ~1300 knots, which is well below the stated limit.

4.) The burn time from various videos appears to be ~3.2 seconds, as opposed to that of Polychop's Mistral's 5-6 second burn time. Going into guesses here, as I'm still trying to figure out how to recompile the .txt file in order to test some changes, I believe that a shorter burn time with higher thrust and possibly increased drag would significantly improve the characteristics of the missile and bring it more in line with the others we see in DCS, as well as becoming more accurate to IRL.

EDIT: All issues were resolved, and behavior improved. Good work Polychop!

Interesting post. Following.

Nothing new, been lots of posts on it, especially the burn time. What you found here is that the many different ways you can make up a missile's "stats" can lead it to have interesting capabilities whislt still broadly fitting with _some_ paper stats. The Mistral has long been abused for it's long burn time and ability to chase fleeing aircraft in stern shots. Long burn times typically fare well in thick air as a cheap way to boost performance. It's quite an easy tweak to play with the burn times without really working on other aspects of performance. What is harder is to get the burn time right and then produce the right effect tweaking the other stats and I suspect that was what happened and no one can argue easily to change it.

Looking at the missile it seems it should be quite easy to get a rough estimate using known values and then component build up a CD0 curve. There is one thing to state though its's fundamental that a pointy nose missile will have substantially less drag than a rounded nose. And the mistrals special seeker dome makes it so it will be low drag. Probably not as low drag as it is currently but still probably much less than the 9x.

Additionally from what info I have the self destruct timer on the mistral is 14 sec. Could be a electrical or hydrolic limit that dictates this. Seeker wise a track could be established on non afterburner jets at around 4-5 km head on and helicopters near 3-4. . With flare rejection based off of angler movement although it does seem it was described as not being as flare resistant as the igla variant that had just come out (I think it was the 9K38 or SA-18 their describing which makes sense considering it has a dual band seeker)

Sea level is the operating altitude in this case, that's pretty obvious, isn't it?