AIM-120 AMRAAM
Channel: 宇宙のすべての知識 プリンシピア
Date: 2018-12-23

AIM-120 AMRAAM, by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=3147 / CC BY SA 3.0

AIM-120 AMRAAM

The AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile, or AMRAAM (pronounced ), is a modern American beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile (BVRAAM) capable of all-weather day-and-night operations. Designed with a 7-inch diameter form-and-fit factor, and employing active transmit-receive radar guidance instead of semi-active receive-only radar guidance, it has the advantage of being a fire-and-forget weapon when compared to the previous generation Sparrow missiles. When an AMRAAM missile is launched, NATO pilots use the brevity code Fox Three.

The AMRAAM is the world's most popular beyond-visual-range missile, and more than 14,000 have been produced for the United States Air Force, the United States Navy, and 33 international customers. The AMRAAM has been used in several engagements and is credited with ten air-to-air kills.

The AIM-7 Sparrow medium range missile (MRM) was purchased by the US Navy from original developer Hughes Aircraft in the 1950s as its first operational air-to-air missile with "beyond visual range" (BVR) capability. With an effective range of about , it was introduced as a radar beam-riding missile and then it was improved to a semiactive radar guided missile which would home in on reflections from a target illuminated by the radar of the launching aircraft. It was effective at visual to beyond visual range. The early beam riding versions of the Sparrow missiles were integrated onto the F3H Demon and F7U Cutlass, but the definitive AIM-7 Sparrow was the primary weapon for the all-weather F-4 Phantom II fighter/interceptor, which lacked an internal gun in its U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and early U.S. Air Force versions. The F-4 carried up to four AIM-7s in built-in recesses under its belly.

Although designed for use against non-maneuvering targets such as bombers, because of poor performance against fighters over North Vietnam, these missiles were progressively improved until they proved highly effective in dogfights. Together with the short-range, infrared-guided AIM-9 Sidewinder, they replaced the AIM-4 Falcon IR and radar guided series for use in air combat by the USAF as well. A disadvantage to semi-active homing was that only one target could be illuminated by the launching fighter plane at a time. Also, the launching aircraft had to remain pointed in the direction of the target (within the azimuth and elevation of its own radar set) which could be difficult or dangerous in air-to-air combat.

An active-radar variant called the Sparrow II was developed to address these drawbacks, but the U.S. Navy pulled out of the project in 1956. The Royal Canadian Air Force, which took over development in the hopes of using the missile to arm their prospective CF-105 Arrow interceptor, soon followed in 1958. The electronics of the time simply could not be miniaturized enough to make Sparrow II a viable working weapon. It would take decades, and a new generation of digital electronics, to produce an effective active-radar air-to-air missile as compact as the Sparrow.

The US Navy later developed the AIM-54 Phoenix long-range missile (LRM) for the fleet air defense mission. It was a large , Mach 5 missile designed to counter cruise missiles and the bombers that launched them. Originally intended for the straight-wing Douglas F6D Missileer and then the navalized version of the F-111B, it finally saw service with the Grumma...