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Jane's Defence Weekly
China's SD-10 claimed to be a dual-mode AAM.
Robert Hewson Jane's Air-Launched Weapons Editor - Zhuhai, China
China's SD-10 medium-range air-to-air missile (AAM), as exhibited at Airshow China earlier in November, may be a considerably more capable weapon than was hitherto believed, Jane's understands.
Officials from the SD-10's manufacturer, the Luoyang Electro-Optical Technology Development Center (LOEC), said the missile was designed from the beginning to function with a dual-mode seeker operating in distinct active and passive radar homing modes. If so, the SD-10 is the first AAM to enter service with this acknowledged capability.
There have been suggestions that the latest AIM-120D Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) developed by Raytheon for the US Air Force and Navy has a similar dual-mode seeker capability. The full capabilities of the AIM-120D remain classified, but its development has been problematic and it has yet to enter operational service.
The SD-10 - the current production version is the refined SD-10A - has been cleared for service on the Chengdu J-10 and late-model versions of the Shenyang J-8 combat aircraft. By the end of this year the missile is expected to be operational with the PAC JF-17s of the Pakistan Air Force.
In lengthy discussions with LOEC at the 16-21 November Airshow China exhibition, the operating modes of the SD-10A were set out to Jane's in detail. The missile has an active terminal homing capability, which has been openly described since the first details of the SD-10 were made public in the middle of the last decade.
What has remained unspoken until now is the missile's claimed ability to home in on radar or electronic warfare emissions from the target aircraft, without support from the launch aircraft or use of the missile's own active seeker modes.
A LOEC official told Jane's that the passive mode was not intended to be the missile's primary targeting mode and cited the risks to friendly aircraft of relying on passive guidance alone. It is not clear if the SD-10A's seeker can continually alternate between active and passive modes in flight or if it makes a less sophisticated 'one time' switch.
In the past, Russian sources have given Jane's a detailed account of the assistance supplied by Russian design bureaus in the development of the SD-10. A LOEC official hinted that this co-operation is continuing when he noted: "We [LOEC] have the capability to make the seeker ourselves, but obviously we want it to be the best it possibly can." He confirmed that the missile still relied on some unidentified components that were sourced outside China.
Within Russia the AGAT Design Bureau has developed several dual-mode seeker designs which it only began discussing in public in 2009. Senior AGAT officials have remained vague when asked by Jane's about who paid for these development programmes, noting only that there is no Russian application and no Russian state support for them.
During the 1990s China also gained access to the 9B-1032 passive seeker developed by Avtomatika for the Vympel R-27P (AA-10 'Alamo') AAM. A melding of these two design inputs might explain how China arrived at its SD-10 seeker design. According to a LOEC official, the dual-mode capability was designed into the SD-10 from its inception.
An SD-10A missile (underwing) is part of the weapons suite of a Pakistan Air Force JF-17 at November's Airshow China.
I haven't seen much in terms of reverse engineered Russian equipment eating into Russian market though. Russian assistance, whether given willingly or unwillingly, has helped China develop its own military industry by leaps and bounds over the past 20 years.
) The arguments you have made could apply to the motorbike as much as to the Su-27/J-11