Russian fighter jet spotted with next-gen R‑37M missiles

A recording has surfaced online showing the Russian Su-30SM2 aircraft carrying the highly interesting and dangerous R-37M air-to-air missiles, introduced into service just a few years ago. We present their capabilities.

The Su-30SM2 itself is not revolutionary, as it is an evolution of the Su-27 fighter jet, first flown in the late '80s, similar to the Su-35S. This over 40,000-pound (takeoff weight) twin-engine, single-seat machine is primarily designed to achieve air superiority but is also capable of attacking ground targets. Besides the 30 mm GSh-30-1 cannon, the aircraft has 12 pylons for carrying weapons.

Much more interesting are the R-37M missiles it carries, visible in the recording below. These are very long-range weapons designed to combat aircraft such as AWACS.

The Russians introduced the R-37M missiles into service in 2019. They are a developed version of the R-33 missiles used on the MiG-31 interceptors. The main change was using an active radar homing head, making the missile a "fire-and-forget" solution.

This increased its effectiveness and allowed it to be mounted on aircraft equipped with smaller, and thus weaker, radars. The older R-33 missile required continuous target illumination by the aircraft's radar until impact, which was problematic for machines with weaker radars.

With the R-37M, this problem does not exist because the missile can be launched near the target area, and its onboard radar will find it independently. The main feature of these missiles is their enormous range, which, according to the Russians, reaches up to 250 miles in glide mode and achieves a speed exceeding Mach 5 (3,841 mph).

This allows for the engagement of AWACS-type machines at distances of several hundred miles or fighter jets at distances over 60 miles (the more maneuverable the target, the shorter the intercept range).

As a result, this is a very heavy air-to-air missile weighing about 1,100 pounds, of which only 132 pounds are allocated to the fragmentation warhead. However, this is sufficient for airborne targets.