Its weapons system, the AIM-54 working with the AWG-9 radar, migrated to the new U.S. One characteristic of the Missileer ancestry was that the radar sent it mid-course corrections, which allowed the fire control system to "loft" the missile up over the target into thinner air where it had better range. The AIM-54 Phoenix, developed for the F-111B fleet air defense fighter, had an airframe with four cruciform fins that was a scaled-up version of the AIM-47. At the same time, the USAF canceled the projects for their land-based high-speed interceptor aircraft, the North American XF-108 Rapier and the Lockheed YF-12, and left the capable AIM-47 Falcon missile at a quite advanced stage of development, but with no effective launch platform. Navy made the next interceptor attempt with the F-111B, and they needed a new missile design. The Missileer project was cancelled in December 1960.Īn AIM-54A launched from the NA-3A-testbed in 1966 It would work together with Westinghouse AN/APQ-81 radar. The weapon needed for interceptor aircraft, the Bendix AAM-N-10 Eagle, was to be an air-to-air missile of unprecedented range when compared to contemporary AIM-7 Sparrow missiles.
The proposed Douglas F6D Missileer was intended to fulfill this mission and oppose the attack as far as possible from the fleet it was defending. The Navy would require a long-range, long-endurance interceptor aircraft to defend carrier battle groups against this threat. This combination was considered capable of saturating fleet defenses and threatening carrier groups. Since 1951, the Navy faced the initial threat from the Tupolev Tu-4K 'Bull' carrying anti-ship missiles or nuclear bombs.Įventually, during the height of the Cold War, the threat would have expanded into regimental-size raids of Tu-16 Badger and Tu-22M Backfire bombers equipped with low-flying, long-range, high-speed, nuclear-armed cruise missiles and considerable electronic countermeasures (ECM) of various types. Navy, the weapon's only current operator is the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force. Following the retirement of the F-14 by the U.S. The AIM-54 has been used in 62 air-to-air strikes, all by Iran during the eight-year Iran–Iraq War. They were replaced by the shorter-range AIM-120 AMRAAM, employed on the F/A-18 Hornet and F/A-18E/F Super Hornet-in its AIM-120D version, the latest version of the AMRAAM just matches the Phoenix's maximum range. In US service both are now retired, the AIM-54 Phoenix in 2004 and the F-14 in 2006.
AIM 120 BLUEPRINT CODE
Due to its active radar tracking, the brevity code " Fox Three" was used when firing the AIM-54.īoth the missile and the aircraft were used by Iran and the United States Navy. The combination of Phoenix missile and the Tomcat's AN/AWG-9 guidance radar meant that it was the first aerial weapons system that could simultaneously engage multiple targets. The Phoenix was the United States' only long-range air-to-air missile. The AIM-54 Phoenix is an American radar-guided, long-range air-to-air missile (AAM), carried in clusters of up to six missiles on the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, its only operational launch platform.
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