Operation Sindoor And The BVR Gap: What The 7 May Air Battle Revealed — And What It Didn’t

During the 7 May air engagement between India and Pakistan, the Indian Air Force may have misjudged the range at which Pakistan’s J-10C fighters could employ their Chinese-made PL-15 air-to-air missiles. Or at least that is the unsettling claim emerging from a new report on the opening hours of Operation Sindoor.

According to the report, officials on both sides confirmed that it was not a shortcoming with the Rafale fighter itself that led to its loss, but an “Indian intelligence failure concerning the range of the China-made PL-15 missile fired by the J-10 fighter.”

Indian pilots believed they were operating outside Pakistani missile range, assessing it to be around 150 km, consistent with the widely cited capabilities of the PL-15’s export variant. But that assumption proved incorrect.

“The faulty intelligence gave the Rafale pilots a false sense of confidence they were out of Pakistani firing distance," the report says.

"The PL-15 that hit the Rafale was fired from around 200km (124.27 mi) away, according to Pakistani officials, and even farther according to Indian officials. That would make it among the longest-range air-to-air strikes recorded," it adds.

The PL-15 is known to exist in at least two variants. One is the longer-range version for the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF), and the other is a shorter-range export version believed to be capped near 145 km. Until now, most reliable sources assumed that the Pakistan Air Force had only been supplied the downgraded export variant. But it now appears that the PAF may have either received the same version as the PLAAF, or at the very least one with significantly greater range than the export version.

This isn’t the first time airpower dynamics between India and Pakistan have come into sharp focus. In February 2019, just over six years ago, the Indian Air Force was involved in its first air battle in decades, a skirmish with the Pakistan Air Force that played out over the Line of Control. The details of that day remain heavily contested, with both sides advancing competing narratives, inflated claims, and selective evidence.

Yet one undeniable reality emerged from the encounter. The PAF held a meaningful advantage in beyond visual range (BVR) combat.

Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi acknowledged the asymmetry at the time, suggesting that if India had possessed the Rafale during the Balakot episode, the outcome might have been different. He asserted that none of India’s fighter jets would have been lost, and that none of Pakistan’s attacking aircraft would have escaped.

However, the comments were not just about the Rafale’s airframe, but about the transformative capability it introduced, the Meteor missile. More on that later.

The PL-15, meanwhile, began development in China around 2011, and entered operational service with the PLAAF by 2016. An evolution of the earlier PL-12 BVR missile, the PL-15 can reportedly reach speeds of up to Mach 5. Its range is disputed, with open-source estimates ranging between 200 to 300 km. The missile is equipped with a two-way datalink, allowing it to receive mid-course guidance from its launch aircraft, making it particularly effective in long-range engagements.

Pakistan is the first export customer for the PL-15, having integrated the missile onto both the Chengdu J-10C multirole fighter and, more recently, the JF-17 Thunder Block III. The Block III variant marks a significant upgrade over earlier JF-17s, most notably through its AESA radar, which dramatically improves tracking and engagement capabilities.

While Pakistan was widely believed to operate only the export variant of the PL-15, that assumption is now in doubt.

If confirmed, this would be the first known instance of a foreign military operating the same high-end PL-15 model as the PLAAF itself.

The long-range strike capability the PL-15 affords the PAF has been widely cited by Pakistani analysts as something that could keep the Indian Air Force from gaining air superiority in a future conflict. Some have gone as far as to argue that it offers an advantage over the Meteor missile carried by the IAF’s Rafale fighters. Whether such an advantage truly exists is more complicated.

The range of the Meteor remains classified, but most credible estimates place it between 120 and 130 miles (roughly 200 km) from launch, depending on flight conditions.

But range alone does not define missile effectiveness. Factors such as the target’s altitude and heading, launch platform speed, and in-flight manoeuvring all play a role. What sets the Meteor apart is its unique propulsion system. It comes with a solid-fuel variable flow ducted rocket, often referred to as a ramjet. This allows the Meteor to modulate thrust mid-flight, a feature not available on traditional solid rocket motor missiles like the PL-15.

The advantage of this design lies in the missile’s endgame performance. Conventional missiles deliver a fixed burst of energy early in flight. Against targets at shorter distances, this isn’t a problem. But at longer ranges, by the time they reach their target, they are often gliding, with reduced energy available for terminal manoeuvres.

This is where the Meteor shines. It retains powered flight into the terminal phase, giving it high energy and better agility during the final intercept. Against fast or manoeuvring targets, that could be decisive.

Yet, given the uncertainties surrounding the May 7 engagement, including the IAF Rafales’ loadout, the rules of engagement they were operating under, and whether political directives limited their freedom to strike PAF fighters, it is difficult to make definitive judgments about the PL-15’s capabilities, and whether the missile has an edge over Meteor. After all, there’s another reality too: the largely intact remains of PL-15s scattered across Punjab’s fields. The Indian scientists dissecting the wreckage are the only ones who may know for sure.

What can be said with some confidence, however, is that the PAF’s combination of the PL-15 missile and the J-10C fighter represents a credible BVR threat, one that holds its own against the IAF’s Rafale-Meteor pairing. The notion that the Meteor alone could restore BVR dominance for India now appears simplistic.

Pakistan’s current edge in BVR capability has deep roots. After 9/11, Washington leaned heavily on Islamabad for support in the war on terror, and provided extensive military assistance in return. As a result, Pakistan was able to modernise its F-16 fleet, steadily narrowing the IAF’s long-standing technological edge.

By 2019, the PAF fielded a diverse mix of F-16s, including 18 F-16C/D Block 52+ aircraft inducted in 2010, 13 F-16A/B ADF variants acquired from Jordan between 2014 and 2016, and 44 F-16A/B Block 15s upgraded under a Mid-Life Update programme carried out by Turkish Aerospace Industries between 2010 and 2014.

The Block 52+ jets, in particular, represent the core of Pakistan’s high-end air combat capability. Most of the fleet, barring the Jordanian ADFs, have been equipped with the Northrop Grumman AN/APG-68(V)9 radar, a modern multi-mode system that enhances both air-to-air and air-to-ground capabilities.

But the single most important addition was the AIM-120C-5 AMRAAM, a NATO-standard BVR missile with an active radar seeker and a range of about 100 to 120 km. In 2006, Pakistan ordered 500 AMRAAMs in a $650 million deal, with deliveries beginning in 2010. This marked a turning point. The PAF had acquired a BVR missile India could not match at the time. That capability played a critical role in 2019.

The events of May 2025 suggest that Pakistan has now layered those capabilities. With the PL-15 integrated onto the J-10C and JF-17 Block III, and possibly fielded in its full-range variant, the PAF has developed a BVR arsenal that is no longer dependent on American supply lines. For India, the implications are clear. The edge in BVR combat remains elusive.