F-35 JSF vs Eurofighter Typhoon

Eurofighter's "balanced" approach to survivability includes radio-based MAW that is as good as fire control self-illumination against F-22, F-35 and probably Rafale for that matter.

Like pointing a flashlight at something thats looking for a flashlight

Imagine yourself in a large indoor arena, at night with the lights off. Would you rather be the guy with the flashlight and hand gun, or the guy with the night-scope and sniper rifle (who also has a flashlight and hand gun if he needs it).

Look at the narrative that they were pushing back in the 2000s and you tell me. They really wanted to make it look like the EF Typhoon was every bit the equal of the F-22.

Well I have this "narrative" for my personal life:
- Win the lottery so that I don't need to work anymore
My point is: Just because I have a narrative or even an objective it doesn't mean that it will happen.

Anyway, that narrative "Typhoon versus F-22" or attempting to pair the Typhoon with the F-22 is nothing more than a PR stunt - you know that "thing" that other manufacturers (including the Typhoon manufacturers) often accuse LM of?

He's not just some poster by the way, he's the admin of the site which I would put in the same level of respect as Gums, Tailgate, Johnwill etc.

Neither I said the opposite.
However by reading that poster's (Scorpion) post it's clear that he centered his F-22 versus F-35 comparison on the performance and agility departments alone in which he is IMO right but then made IMO the mistake of dismissing the other factors (Stealth, sensors, avionics, etc...) which IMO he is wrong.
While I don't like speaking for others I believe from what I've read that other renown and respected posters here would also disagree with dismissing the F-35 advantages (Stealth, sensors, avionics, etc...) in a F-35 versus F-22 Air-to-Air combat.

Anyway, I think we can agree that there are 3 components that set apart great air superiority platforms. Stealth , S.A. and Kinematics.

Absolutely.
And IMO, the F-35 is better than F-22 in Stealth and S.A. while the F-22 is better than the F-35 in kinematics.

STEALTH, we can probably agree that the F-22 and F-35 are equal. Gen. Hostage did say that the F-35 "can" beat the F-22 in Stealth. Operating word is can. This could simply mean that with more passive detection methods the F-35 doesn't need to rely as much on active radar.

I would also say that the word works both ways. If something simply can beat you then it is not to be confused that it will beat you. Likewise I think the F-22 "can" beat the F-35 in stealth. For example the F-22 does not need to rely on AB as much as the F-35 in moments where speed and acceleration are critical to mission success. This gives the F-22 a lower IR signature in those moments.

Gen. Hostage unequivocally said and IMO without any margin of a doubt that the F-35 does have a lower RCS F-22 in Stealth.
I'll post again the exact words that Gen. Hostage said (note, this are his actual world and not my interpretation of the same words:

The F-35′s cross section is much smaller than the F-22′s. “The F-35 doesn’t have the altitude, doesn’t have the speed [of the F-22], but it can beat the F-22 in stealth.”

IMO, another reason for the "can beat" part could IMO be due:
- He could be thinking outside a traditional head-to-head confrontation. For example in situations where the F-22 approaches the F-35 from behind, here of course that the F-22 would be Stealthier than the F-35. Now head-to-head, I believe that the F-35 can or will indeed beat the F-22.

There's IMO another reason why you'll probably won't see anyone saying that the "F-35 will beat" as opposed to "F-35 can beat", this in certain situations:
- The fact is that the F-22 program has always been in peril. Only 187 operational F-22s have been manufactured and from those only 120+ are combat coded which is much less than it was initially intended. And of course the US Air Force wants the F-22. Who in his right mind wouldn't want an aircraft which is likely the world's best in terms of performance/kinematics while being one of the two Stealthiest aircraft in the world??
But imagine if someone from the Air Force started to say that the F-35 beats the F-22 in this or in that during mock Air-to-Air Combats? I'm sure this would be "juicy target" for the politicians to shut it down, don't you think?

S.A. and Kinematics This is where our differences collide. Those who say that the F-35 is better in A-A seem to think that it has more than enough kinematic performance to perform the air dominance mission while having far more S.A. than the F-22. this in turn makes it more effective, the whole "Information is life" is the new "speed is life".

The Reverse is true for me. I happen to think that the F-22 already has more than enough SA to perform air dominance and the added kinematics just make it more deadly.

I'll refer to Dozer's example again. his targets were 2 F-15s that were making a run for it. They were at supersonic, Mach 1.2+ IIRC, yet despite that he closed in on them from behind at a rate of Mach 1. He was going Mach 2+ in combat configuration. What would an F-35 do in a similar situation?

Why wouldn't the F-35 have enough performance to perform Air-to-Air or even Air Dominance missions??
Your answer to that question was the single example/situation that you posted (F-22 versus F-15). But that situation are you aware that if there were F-35s against those F-15s and even if some or more F-15s escaped compared if you had F-22s instead of F-35s, this would also be a win for the F-35s?
Winning an air-to-air combat is not only about destroying all the enemy's aircraft you know? If you force them to retreat, that's already a win.

Moreover are you aware that the Air Dominance fighter of all other countries that purchased the F-35 will be exactly the F-35? IMO, this seems to be an indicator that the F-35 has enough performance for this role - just like the F-16 had compared to the F-15, BTW - and together with the best Stealth and Sensor/avionics package, who knows if it (F-35) couldn't end up being the best (until the PCA or whatever comes online)?

See that got me thinking, why did he need to chase them down? doesn't the AMRAAM have a range of 100 Km+ and speeds of Mach 4, he could of just shot them from behind. Then it hit me, Launch parameters.

Each situation is a situation but making a wild guess here, it could also be due to Rules of Engagement.

But of course that when you launch a missile against the target going away from you that its "effective range" will be lower than if the target is flying towards you. So yes, a 100km range figure (being the 100km a missile's maximum range) would be against a target flying towards the launching aircraft but that range would be quite less than 100km (for the same example) if the target is flying away from the launching aircraft.

Having extreme long range missiles with 100Km range isn't new,
but in practice the longest range A-A kill is what? 20 miles, Dozer even launched his at 15 miles away. Is it from a lack of SA. Nope, even in the Gulf of Sidra incidents, the Mig-23s were detected, identified, considered hostile and cleared for engagement from a hundred miles away. But shots were only fired WVR. They weren't forced into a dogfight because of the lack of SA. They had more than enough SA to kill the bandits 100 miles out.

So this tells us that realistically, BVR combat is not lobbing AMRAAMs from 50 to 100 miles away, but more like within 20 mile encounters. Not because you lack SA but because thats the limitation of weapons technology. Fighters are probably the most difficult manned battlefield asset to hit due to the sheer nature of their kinematics. So even in 1999 with the game changing Aim-120 (A or B doesn't matter) AMRAAMs fired from 5 miles still miss, would you really want to fire it from 70 miles away even if it is the C7 or D variant.

Again Rules of Engagement (RoE), specially and namely Gulf of Sidra incident which dictated that the Migs would only be engaged when confirmed that they were being hostile and ready to engage and this happened at WVR.

The F-35 Sensor fusion together with sensors such as DAS would be extremely useful in such situation. Actually much, much more important than the aircraft's raw performance.

So you're wrongly assuming that in those example that you gave above - such as in 1999 - that the aircraft had a good SA and/or that the Rules of engagement allowed the engagement of enemy aircraft at longer ranges than lets say those "20 nautical miles".
If we look at Desert Storm, the RoE dictated that even if a pilot receives a positive ID from the an AWACS it still must have another source confirmation - this case either IFF or NCTR - in order to engage the enemy aircraft at BVR ranges. So it's possible that some of these technologies, namely the NCTR need some time to ID the enemy aircraft which at closure rate means that a valid/within RoE shot would only be taken a closer ranges than otherwise possible.

As such, the F-35 superior Sensor fusion helps relaxing the Rules of Engagement for the F-35 pilots. This is nothing new actually. Again and for example during Desert Storm the F-15C's were the only aircraft that were allowed to engage enemy aircraft at BVR range without having AWACS confirmation/declare because they were the only ones that carried Non-Cooperative Target Recognition (NCTR). So what happened here? The introduction of a new technology - in this case NCTR - allowed to expand beyond the existing RoE.
The F-35's Sensor fusions coupled with all the advanced sensor technology will expand RoE much, much further. Actually such technology will allow the F-35 to perform mini-AWACS kind of roles.

Above, you posted IMO a mistake on the following part:
"So even in 1999 with the game changing Aim-120 (A or B doesn't matter)"

Well it does matter and quite considerably so. The AIM-120B is an improved version of the AIM-120A and as such more reliable and less prone to miss. And these reliability levels have been increasing at each variant of the AMRAAM, of course.
And the AIM-120D has more than twice the range of those early AMRAAMs.
Of course you wouldn't want to launch missiles at their maximum range, preferably you'll want to launch them within their NEZ but I'm pretty sure that the NEZ of these later AMRAAMs more than doubles the NEZ of earlier AMRAAMs, so today aircraft would launch missiles (AMRAAMs) at much longer ranges than previously possible.

You're mixing stuff up Ricnunes.
The 2000 is the answer to the Teen series, with the 4000 being supposed as a heavier complement but later dropped. The Rafale (and the Typhoon) is clearly a notch further. You can't twist facts like that.

Let's see if we can get on the "right foot" this time.

No, I'm not "mixing things up". While you may have a point that the French tried to mimic the US Air Force with their "F-15 High-Mix" and "F-16 Low-Mix" or even the US Navy with their "F-14 High-Mix" and "F/A-18 Low-Mix", this with the Mirage 4000 (cancelled) as being the French Air Force's "High-Mix" and Mirage 2000 the "Low-Mix", the fact was that the Mirage 2000 was not much of a match against (or if you will as advanced as) the F/A-18 and later versions of the F-16.
You can argue all you want for the Mirage 2000 while claiming things such as the Mirage 2000 had better BVR capabilities than the very first F-16A variants (albeit later variants "solved" this) but the fact is that it was soon realized that the Mirage 2000 was not a match for aircraft like the F/A-18 and F-16. There are several reasons for this which I'll highlight two (2) of them:
- Super-maneuverability. Although the Mirage 2000 is an agile aircraft, it isn't much of a match against aircraft like the F-16 or F/A-18, namely in this "department"/metric.
- True multirole capability. Say what you will but the Mirage 2000 was NOT a TRUE multirole aircraft! You have the Mirage 2000C for Air-to-Air roles, the Mirage 2000D for Air-to-Ground roles and even the Mirage 2000N for Nuclear-Strike roles.
With the F-16 and F/A-18 a single variant can/will perform all the roles above!

Moreover there's the case of Brazil which purchased the Mirage 2000C which operated them for only less than a decade (around 8 years) before retired them in favor of updated F-5s. This doesn't speak much in favor of the Mirage 2000 if you will.

Due to the Mirage 2000 limitations above, the French designed the Rafale. An aircraft that finally could match the F-16 and F/A-18 in terms of Super-maneuverability and finally a true Multirole aircraft where finally a single variant could perform the roles above, namely Air-to-Air and Air-to-Ground.
So yes, the Rafale was the French attempt (and finally successful if you want to know my opinion) to keep up with the US F-16s and F/A-18s and have a match for these US aircrafts.

Resuming, the Mirage 2000 was in the very "same boat" as the Tornado, although we could debate here the pros and cons between both these aircraft "to death". They were among the very first European attempts to develop and manufacture 4th gen fighter aircraft which fell short when compared to the US efforts (and even compared with Soviet efforts of the time, namely the Mig-29 and Su-27). This IMO is again due to what I've been repeatedly posting here: The European fighter/combat aircraft industry lagged and still lags well behind its US counterpart.

Out of all those fighter previously mentioned, the F-22 is the jet that will need to rely on its afterburners the least. So then just how good are any jets IRST detection against a Raptor that operates easily over 50,000ft and in mil power? Not to mention the included environmental factors also?

As Tailgate (F-22 pilot) said, in talking with a Typhoon pilot: "First look is key. I had a “Tiffie” pilot tell me that the IRST system on his jet was great, but he still had to know where to look. He said sometimes searching out in space with the IRST was like trying to find someone looking thru a plastic straw." and "Both the IRST and HOBS were developed for I guess that toolbox that pilots carry. Just one more to help win the day..."

Anyway, that narrative "Typhoon versus F-22" or attempting to pair the Typhoon with the F-22 is nothing more than a PR stunt - you know that "thing" that other manufacturers (including the Typhoon manufacturers) often accuse LM of?

Exactly, what I'm saying is, the Typhoon and Rafale are Europe's attempts at making a 21st century era fighter. Americans were the only ones who called their 21st century fighters 5th gens. But given a choice, Europeans will call it that as well as they believe they're way was simply a different approach to the same problem.

However by reading that poster's (Scorpion) post it's clear that he centered his F-22 versus F-35 comparison on the performance and agility departments

He only used performance and agility as his example but here was his bottom line

Maj. Searcy is just the latest Lightning pilot that I’ve heard to have publicly stated what some in the Lightning fanbase has to understand: the jet is built from day one to fulfill a role and has a certain responsibility. In the US at least, it is to compliment the F-22. It is the low end of a Hi-Lo mix. It was made primarily for air-to-ground, but with some overlapping and credible air-to-air capability as is the inverse with the F-22: primarily air-to-air with credible air-to-ground capability. One cannot totally replace the other in their primary roles.

The F-35′s cross section is much smaller than the F-22′s.

Notice how he said cross section not Radar cross section. He was just talking about the actual cross section (size) of the F-35 in relation to the F-22.

- The fact is that the F-22 program has always been in peril. Only 187 operational

The fact that the USAF is still devastated by only getting 187 F-22 even if they are getting more than 1,700 F-35s is telling. If the F-35 was actually better or even equal to the F-22 in A-A then the USAF wouldn't fuss about getting so few F-22s.

Winning an air-to-air combat is not only about destroying all the enemy's aircraft you know? If you force them to retreat, that's already a win.

Its mission success but its far from killing them if they can return to fight another day. The F-22 has reportedly forced more than 587 aircraft to abort mission in Syria. But you don't hear the USAF thumping their chest saying they achieved more than 587 air to air victories over Syria.

Read here:
https://www.businessinsider.sg/f-22s-ba ... ?r=US&IR=T

In fact simply forcing the 500 aircraft to abort hardly made any news at all. Imagine if the F-22 was actually cleared to fire and simply brought down 10% of the 587.

The USAF would have achieved total air dominance and much of Russia's and Syria's AF wouldn't dare. They simply didn't want to escalate the war.

Moreover are you aware that the Air Dominance fighter of all other countries that purchased the F-35 will be exactly the F-35?

I don't know that. In fact Japan, SKorea and Turkey seems to be interested in a dedicated A-A 5th gen even if IMO the F-35 fits that bill

Well it does matter and quite considerably so. The AIM-120B is an improved version of the AIM-120A and as such more reliable and less prone to miss.

The AMRAAM was billed as a "game changer" weather it was just the A or the current D version. And in my opinion it was. But we were expecting 50 mile BVR kills to be the norm with this thing and it wasn't. Just like we are expecting 100 mile BVR kills with the F-22 and F-35 now.

It will change the game don't get me wrong but sometime we win not in the ways we expect but still win in the end.

Out of all those fighter previously mentioned, the F-22 is the jet that will need to rely on its afterburners the least. So then just how good are any jets IRST detection against a Raptor that operates easily over 50,000ft and in mil power? Not to mention the included environmental factors also?

Should be Better than fighter radar detection against stealth aircraft

O what I meant was, against an adversary. Lets say they are equally stealthy in the RF spectrum, but the F-22 could be more stealthy in the IR spectrum.

We can assume F-22 has lower IR signature, but then because it doesn't have an IRST so ....you know, even if F-35 IR signature is 3 times higher than F-22, it can still first look/first shot with EOTS. This is like going up against better camoflauge enemy but then they are blind

"Notice how he said cross section not Radar cross section. He was just talking about the actual cross section (size) of the F-35 in relation to the F-22." -01

Nope. The context of the remarks was about radar cross section.

"In fact Japan, SKorea and Turkey seems to be interested in a dedicated A-A 5th gen even if IMO the F-35 fits that bill." --01

They are interested in developing their own indigenous capability for the design/development and manufacture of advanced military aircraft.

"Just like we are expecting 100 mile BVR kills with the F-22 and F-35 now." --01

Who is 'we'?

"Notice how he said cross section not Radar cross section. He was just talking about the actual cross section (size) of the F-35 in relation to the F-22." -01

Nope. The context of the remarks was about radar cross section.

That doesn't make sense, if he was already referring to radar cross section then he is effectively already saying that F-35 is stealthier than the F-22. So why would he later tone that down by saying it simply "Can" beat the F-22 in Stealth.

Thats like saying. The F-35 is stealthier than the F-22 so it can be stealthier then the F-22.
Redundant and confusing.

Plus he would openly admit to foreign air arms that will buy the F-35 that it has better RCS than the F-22.
yes those are allies but its still a very sensitive security breach.

Sorry I think what he really meant was
The F-35 is smaller than the F-22 and it CAN beat the F-22 in Stealth

They are interested in developing their own indigenous capability for the design/development and manufacture of advanced military aircraft.

Japan was at least interested in the F-22 Hybrid which is not indigenous. Anyway it was simply a response to the quote that the F-35 will be assigned as the primary A-A asset of those who bought it. Is there any documentation to support that.

We know that it is not taking the spot away from the F-22 in A-A.

"Just like we are expecting 100 mile BVR kills with the F-22 and F-35 now." --01
Who is 'we'?

Well if this was not the expectation then great, in a more realistic 20-40 mile BVR engagement zone, having the F-22's kinematics make it extremely valuable. Even in a BVR fight rapid turns and having the speed to intercept is critical.

Thats why when Hostage said these things it makes sense.

“Because it can’t turn and run away, it’s got to have support from other F-35s. So I’m going to need eight F-35s to go after a target that I might only need two Raptors to go after.

“The F-35 doesn’t have the altitude, doesn’t have the speed [of the F-22],

The F-35 is to the F-22 as the F-16 is to the F-15. The latter aircraft are the kings of air to air combat. The F-35 and the F-16 are the mainstay of the air fleet, designed for both air-to-air and air-to-ground attacks.

There it is, Gen Hostage himself telling us the F-22 is king of A-A combat while the F-35 is the mainstay workhorse that does everything else well but not as good as the "kings". Thats the most polite way of saying it.

Super-maneuverability. Although the Mirage 2000 is an agile aircraft, it isn't much of a match against aircraft like the F-16 or F/A-18, namely in this "department"/metric.

Yet Greek Mirage 2000 have managed to get Turkish F-16 into their gunsights and shoot one down and posted the screen shots in violent intercepts in which aircraft have been shot down/collided and pilots have died.

https://theaviationist.com/2015/12/30/a ... -dogfight/

The Mirage 2000 has greater instantaneous maneuverability than a F-16 and the latter has greater sustained turning with only a couple of degrees difference either way. You exaggerate minor differences to inaccurately claim generational superiority. The Rafale in fact is only incrementally better than Mirage 2000 in maneuvering characteristics. In effect it's a stealthier Mirage 3500 where it does everything a bit better.

'zero-one' likes to NOT quote or quote selectively from the article OR NOT so here is the article in one eight page PDF...

"...“The F-35 is geared to go out and take down the surface targets,” says Hostage, leaning forward. “The F-35 doesn’t have the altitude, doesn’t have the speed [of the F-22], but it can beat the F-22 in stealth.” But stealth — the ability to elude or greatly complicate an enemy’s ability to find and destroy an aircraft using a combination of design, tactics and technology — is not a magic pill, Hostage reminds us...."
&
"...The F-35 and the F-16 are the mainstay of the air fleet, designed for both air-to-air and air-to-ground attacks...."

Eight page PDF of entire 3 part article concatenated below. Name has to be changed to upload here (perhaps too long?).

“Redundant and confusing” —01

Only to you zero.

Japanese industrial interests? That’s what the X-2 attempts to kick start. A hybrid F-22 would have taken the next step.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/milita ... 35-hybrid/

“Well if this [100 mile BVR kills] was not the expectation then great, in a more realistic 20-40 mile BVR engagement zone, having the F-22's kinematics make it extremely valuable.”

Hmmm, “in a more realistic...engagement. So, by your own admission, the 100 mile number is not realistic. Did you just make it up?

Let's see if we can get on the "right foot" this time.

As marsavian pointed out you have a tendency to over-inflate marginal advantages, and also as I mentioned, to overlook and twist a whole set of facts. Let me have an overview:

- Super-maneuverability. Although the Mirage 2000 is an agile aircraft, it isn't much of a match against aircraft like the F-16 or F/A-18, namely in this "department"/metric.

Firstly, neither Hornet, 2000 and Viper are super-manœuvrable.

Regarding the Viper, it has better STR and overall energy retention, while the 2000 excels in ITR, hi-alpha and lo-speed handling (particularly lo-speed roll rate). The one which brings the other in its maneuverability realm wins, and the 2000 is here clearly a match for the Viper (the Hellenic example testifies this) and the Hornet.

I will not expand on the 2000's general handling capabilities that allow it to excel equally in the tasks it is assigned to, from high altitude, high speed air defence and superiority to low-level, high speed penetration (and being in that specific aspect a clear notch beyond Tornado and Viper w/ LANTIRN).

- True multirole capability. Say what you will but the Mirage 2000 was NOT a TRUE multirole aircraft! You have the Mirage 2000C for Air-to-Air roles, the Mirage 2000D for Air-to-Ground roles and even the Mirage 2000N for Nuclear-Strike roles.
With the F-16 and F/A-18 a single variant can/will perform all the roles above!

You're thoroughly confusing two very distinct aspects: CONOPS/doctrine and capability.

French CONOPS, for various reasons, dictated this lack of multirole capability for the 2000 in French service. Furthermore, the French role distinction is not as sharp as you may believe. The 2000N was actually the first one to perform conventional A2G tasks (and was actually used as such by the 3rd FW until the 2000D came along) but was primarly dedicated to strategic nuclear role (CONOPS again), while the 2000D is also able to perform nuclear tasks if needed. Air defence variants, namely the -5F, are indeed highly specialized, just like the Eagle.

However, how could you overlook the very obvious example of the 2000-5 (not -5F) which, as soon as 1992, was available on the market as a true multi-role aircraft? I don't know whether you were unaware or chose not to mention this, but the -5 was put up against the Hornet in Finland. It lost because of uncertainties wrt. its operating costs, but proved during the evaluation to be a very capable aircraft, and definitely a match for the Hornet, unlike you fiercely claim.

The Finnish case is by the way particularly interesting regarding doctrine and role assignments. Finnish Hornets were for instance purely dedicated to air defence tasks until quite recently. Do I claim, as a general rule, that Hornet is not a multirole aircraft? No, that'd be silly, yet that's the narrative you apply to 2000s.

Do I also need to remind you that India, Greece and the UAE are operating fully multi-role variants of the 2000, namely the 2000I, -5EG and -9EAD? I'll also mention that LM had to bring up the F-16E to be able to match the -9. It is quite well known that the F-16E is clearly a notch ahead legacy Vipers. That does not go well in favor of your "2000 isn't a match for Teens" argument.

Moreover there's the case of Brazil which purchased the Mirage 2000C which operated them for only less than a decade (around 8 years) before retired them in favor of updated F-5s. This doesn't speak much in favor of the Mirage 2000 if you will.

Some delicious cherry picking again. The Brazilians 2000Cs were worn out, and set to an older standard (S4). OTOH and in line with my point above, India, Greece, the UAE and France (2000D MLU) are all undergoing upgrade programmes for their 2000 - clearly showing their relevance and ability to match their counterparts. This doesn't speak much in favor of your arguments.

That should clear things up regarding your incorrect assessment of the extent of the 2000 ability to be a match for the Teens and your argument that the Rafale's mere goal was to overcome this. I know the Dassault and the 2000 product line can be confusing. Feel free to ask me for any further detail if you have any uncertainties about the 2000's capabilities - which you obviously don't fully grasp yet.

Chip, when talking of stealthy misspoke and said, The F-22 has lower RCS at least in the x-band. I can infer then that the f-35 is better in the lower bands. That section has since been edited out of the video. also as stated here, IR is also a big part of 'stealthy'. I think the f-35 may lead the f-22 in this at operational speed. I think the f-35 will be at 3-500kt sneaking around

Nope, even in the Gulf of Sidra incidents, the Mig-23s were detected, identified, considered hostile and cleared for engagement from a hundred miles away. But shots were only fired WVR.

This is incorrect. I believe this is not the first time you've claimed this, and I've corrected it.

The first shot was at 12 nm, 500 kt head-to-head, nowhere near a practical visual range. The "tally-two" call occurred at around 5 nm range. The first two 'Fox-2' shots occurred well before this tally-two call occurred, the first one was immediately after the "12 [nautical] miles" call, and the second shot occurred just after passing "10 [nautical] miles".

12 nm = 22.2 kilometers ... this is a long way outside of visual range against a fighter in optimal conditions.
10 nm = 18.5 kilometers ... obviously a BVR launch
5 nm = 9.2 kilometers ... this was at the edge of a practical visual range for a 1,000 kt closure, this pilot had keen eyes and apparently in nearly ideal visual conditions.

This A2A was indisputably a BVR engagement that then went to WVR shots well inside 5 nm radius.

Please stop claiming it was just a WVR missile fight.