AIM - 47 Falcon The Hughes AIM - 47 Falcon , originally GAR - 9 , was a very long - range high - performance air - to - air missile that shared the basic design of the earlier AIM - 4 Falcon . It was developed in 1958 along with the new Hughes AN / ASG - 18 radar fire - control system intended to arm the Mach 3 XF - 108 Rapier interceptor aircraft . It was never used operationally , but was a direct predecessor of the AIM - 54 Phoenix . Development . Development for XF - 108 . In the early 1950s , the United States Air Force developed a requirements for a high speed , high performance interceptor aircraft , originally called the LRI - X . In 1957 , Hughes won the contract to supply the weapons system for this aircraft . This system consisted of the GAR - X missile and the YX - 1 radar and fire control system . The original missile design had a range of 15 to 25 miles ( 25 to 40 km ) , and could be equipped with a conventional warhead or a 0 . 25 kiloton version of the W42 nuclear warhead . When the North American XF - 108 Rapier was announced as the winner of the LRI - X contest in April 1958 , the Hughes entries were redesignated GAR - 9 and AN / ASG - 18 on the same day . The F - 108 was cancelled in September 1959 , but the Air Force decided to continue development of the missile system with both warheads . During its development , the capabilities of the new missile grew tremendously . Growing much larger , the missile ' s range was extended to 100 miles ( 160 km ) , using the Aerojet - General XM59 solid - fuel motor . Since this would be beyond the range of effective semi - active homing , a new active - radar terminal seeker was added to the missile . This seeker was a powerful system of its own , with no effective maximum range and the resolution to be able to lock onto a target at 63 nm ( 116 km ) . Even the seeker was changed at one point , with the addition of a passive infrared seeker to improve terminal performance . However , that would have required the missile to grow by , and in diameter by two inches , making it too large for the F - 108 ' s weapon bay . The W - 42 nuclear version was dropped in 1958 in favor of a 100 pound high - explosive design . Problems with the motor during development led to the brief consideration of using a storable liquid - fuel rocket design , but was replaced instead by the Lockheed XSR13 - LP - 1 solid rocket . This lowered the top speed from Mach 6 to Mach 4 . In this form the GAR - 9 started ground firings in August 1961 . For air - launch testing at supersonic speeds the Republic XF - 103 had originally been proposed as a test platform , but this aircraft was cancelled before reaching the prototype stage . Instead , B - 58 Hustler s / n 55 - 665 was modified to house the AN / ASG - 18 radar in a large protruding radome that gave it the nickname " Snoopy " , and in - flight launches started in May 1962 . Development for YF - 12 . In 1960 Lockheed started development of the Lockheed YF - 12 interceptor , as a lower - cost replacement for the F - 108 . The GAR - 9 / ASG - 18 were moved to this project . The F - 12 would have featured four flip - open internal weapons bays on the chines behind the cockpit , one of these filled with electronics . The F - 12B bays were too small for the GAR - 9 , so the GAR - 9B was developed with flip - out fins to reduce its diameter . Test firings of the GAR - 9A from the prototype F - 12As resulted in six kills from seven launches , the lone miss due to a missile power failure ( there were several non - guiding test launches as well ) . The missile was renamed AIM - 47 in the fall of 1962 as part of the transition to common naming for aerospace vehicles across the U . S . Department of Defense in 1962 . The last launch was from a YF - 12 flying at Mach 3 . 2 and an altitude of 74 , 400 feet ( 22 , 677 m ) at a QB - 47 target drone 500 feet ( 152 m ) off the ground . In 1966 , the F - 12 project was cancelled just like the F - 108 had been cancelled . Another project which expressed an interest in the design was the XB - 70 Valkyrie , a bomber which could have carried the AIM - 47 for self - defense . This aircraft was also cancelled after Soviet deployment of effective high - altitude surface - to - air missiles made high - altitude attacks on the Soviet Union impractical . In all , Hughes had built some 80 pre - production AIM - 47 missiles . Legacy . The AIM - 47 was used as a base for the AIM - 54 Phoenix ( originally the AAM - N - 11 ) , intended for the General Dynamics F - 111B . This project was also canceled in 1968 , but the weapon system finally found a home on the F - 14 Tomcat , entering service in the early 1970s . In 1966 , the basic airframe was adapted with the seeker from the AGM - 45 Shrike and the warhead from the Mk . 81 bomb to create the high - speed AGM - 76 Falcon anti - radar missile , although this did not see service .