{"id":184175,"date":"2012-07-14T05:04:00","date_gmt":"2012-07-14T10:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2012\/07\/14\/israel-developing-python-6-based-on-stunner-sam-atbm\/"},"modified":"2012-07-14T05:04:00","modified_gmt":"2012-07-14T10:04:00","slug":"israel-developing-python-6-based-on-stunner-sam-atbm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2012\/07\/14\/israel-developing-python-6-based-on-stunner-sam-atbm\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel Developing Python 6 Based on Stunner SAM\/ATBM"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Israeli defense company Rafael is working to develop a successor to the Python 5 and the Derby based on their Stunner surface to air missile<\/a> (paid subscription required<\/i>):<\/p>\n

Rafael, Israel’s leading missile development center, continues to work quietly on an air-to-air derivative of the Stunner interceptor\u2014to be designated Python 6, or the Future Advanced Air-to-Air Missile (FAAM).<\/span>

<\/span>
The Stunner is a surface-to-air weapon being developed in partnership with Raytheon for Israel’s David’s Sling air and missile defense system. The Python 6 has been chronicled for almost a decade.<\/span>

<\/span>
Although the Israeli air force (IAF) still has not officially endorsed an air-to-air version, sources at Rafael say consultations over the features of such a missile have been underway since the final stages of development of the Python 5, currently in production.<\/span>

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The IAF could avoid committing its own funding to FAAM development, hoping that Rafael can first strike a deal with a U.S. partner to obtain the next-generation air-to-air missile. But according to Chairman Ilan Biran, Rafael is in the meantime using its R&D budget, estimated at $125 million, to fund the project.<\/span>

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\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

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The Stunner was designed as a \u201cplatform-agnostic\u201d missile that can be adapted for air and ground launch, from rail or ejector racks, in conventional or internal carriage configurations. The Mach 5.5, long-range missile is equipped with a dual electro-optic\/radio-frequency seeker and an advanced multistage rocket motor. Designed as a hit-to-kill anti-missile weapon , Stunner has no warhead and instead can carry a more powerful rocket motor capable of ranges beyond any air-to-air missile available today.<\/span>

<\/span>
Druker says the FAAM will likely cost significantly less than today’s AIM-120 , Derby or Meteor, but more than the current short-range missiles. Although the FAAM and Stunner do not share a common configuration, Rafael expects that the overall life-cycle cost offered by the Stunner will be much lower than any other missile combination.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Personally, I’m a little bit dubious that the missile will go completely without a warhead, the PAC-3 Patriot, for example is hit to kill, but contains a “lethality enhancer” (basically a tiny warhead to scatter shrapnel in the path of the target.<\/p>\n

That being said, using a dual mode seeker (you can see how the IR seeker is offset so as to allow a radar to be placed behind it) the missile’s accuracy should be pretty high.<\/p>\n

They also expect this to be the last AAM they develop.<\/p>\n

Yosi Druker, director of Rafael’s Air-to-Air and Air Defense Directorate, suggests that they will be superseded by new technologies, because “the next generation of interceptors will employ other kill mechanisms, not necessarily a missile, to defeat airborne targets,” which I take to be a reference to directed energy weapons.<\/p>\n

I’m dubious of this, but I’ve been wrong more often than not when I have been dubious about a technological development.<\/p>\n

Background here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Israeli defense company Rafael is working to develop a successor to the Python 5 and the Derby based on their Stunner surface to air missile (paid subscription required): Rafael, Israel’s leading missile development center, continues to work quietly on an air-to-air derivative of the Stunner interceptor\u2014to be designated Python 6, or the Future Advanced …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1007,1008,1159,1180],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aviation","category-defense-procurement","category-israel","category-missiles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184175"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}