The Royal Air Force announced the flight test with the Meteor BVRAAM in inert configuration onboard an F-35B STOVL fighter jet of the U.S. Marine Corps.
The carriage test was performed in Naval Air Station Patuxent River to gather environmental data for the carriage of Meteor missiles by F-35 fighters.
The Meteor missile seen in the published images has clipped fins to fit inside the less forgiving internal hardpoints. The wide span of fins has been among the main issues for integrating Meteor missiles on F-35, which has been a goal for the U.K. at the earliest stages of introduction. However, clipping the fins for internal fitting is not the end because of the associated aerodynamic changes and control system tweaks. Thus, the completion of the integration work can be expected to take a few years.
Alongside the U.K. partnering on integration work for F-35B used by the Royal Navy, Italy is doing so for the land-based F-35A.
Meteor’s main advantage over the AIM-120 line of BVRAAMs is that the solid fuel ramjet provides efficient propulsion by throttling, contributing to effective range and interception chances despite the identical length.
