"Harry Andreas" wrote in message
...
In article , Scott Ferrin
wrote:

On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 13:38:28 -0600, "John Carrier"
wrote:
It depends upon the target speed and its aspect, doesn't it? A low
altitude
stream raid (multiple sea skimmers, perhaps submarine launched) head on
at
.9IMN required careful management of the launch parameters (first shot
relatively high, subsequent shots lower), the radar scan volume, and
(eventually) removal of radar support for the first shot(s) to insure
successful engagement of all the targets.

Low altitude severely limits range. Sidewinder envelopes can get below
1/2
mile with a fast, opening target at low altitude. Rear quarter shots
are
limited by motor burn time (in this regard, AMRAAM is pretty nice,
assuming
it doesn't have any speed gate issues ala Sparrow ... wouldn't know,
never
carried one). The target is effected by speed limitations (An F-14 can
easily do 1.8 ... around 1200 KTAS ... at higher altitudes, 800KIAS
low),
but its engines sustain the speed.

Kinda gives you an appreciation of the AIM-47. A long ranged missile
fired at Mach 3+ and 80,000ft+ I still think that the YF-12 was one
of the best "might have beens".

Interesting aircraft and great at it's design purpose, but too
operationally
limited as a fighter or interceptor.

I'm not sure I understand. At the time the USAF was procuring the
replacement for the F106 in the late seventies, I saw the results of cost
and effectiveness evaluations of several alternatives: F12/AIM-47,
BF-1/AIM-54(lots of them), F14, F15/Sparrow and....F16/Sparrow. Against the
cannonical Backfire threat in the North Atlantic basin, the F12 performed
hugely well. On a cost/benefits trade, the results for most threats was
pretty much in the order shown above.

Of course, the USAF selected the F16/Sparrow which showed up worst in every
scenario I saw. That spoke volumes on how seriously the USAF took the late
seventies bomber threat.

The BF-1A was interesting: huge aperature for the AWG-9 set and IRRC, 24
AIM-54s. The increased antenna gain raised the various RADAR ranges by about
50%.