AIM-54 Phoenix missile

On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 01:13:20 -0700, Scott Ferrin wrote:

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".

Didn't it take ages to fuel the thing, making it incapable of
scrambling quickly?

--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(Email: , but first subtract 275 and reverse
the last two letters).

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.

--
Harry Andreas
Engineering raconteur

A number of targets in column, at low altitude and at a high subsonic speed.
Generally engaged from head-on.

R/ John

"phil hunt" wrote in message
. ..
On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 13:38:28 -0600, John Carrier wrote:
Not as much as you'd think. Increased air density shrinks missile
envelopes.

But the increased air density also reduces the speed of the
target; wouldn't these effects roughly cancel out?

Not as much as you'd think.

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

What's this?


--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(Email: , but first subtract 275 and reverse
the last two letters).

In article ,
"John Carrier" writes:
A number of targets in column, at low altitude and at a high subsonic speed.
Generally engaged from head-on.

And spread out enough in time that you can't engage several at once,
and there won't be time to finish the current engagement and get the
next whatever (airplane/missile) coming inbound. Manual systems, that
rely on human observers to watch teh scopes and vector the
interceptors or assign SAM targets are particularly vulnerable to this
method of attacking. (Each controller can really only handle one or
two targets at a time)


R/ John

"phil hunt" wrote in message
. ..
On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 13:38:28 -0600, John Carrier wrote:
Not as much as you'd think. Increased air density shrinks missile
envelopes.

But the increased air density also reduces the speed of the
target; wouldn't these effects roughly cancel out?

Not as much as you'd think.

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

What's this?


--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(Email: , but first subtract 275 and reverse
the last two letters).





--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

In article ,
ess (phil hunt) writes:
On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 01:13:20 -0700, Scott Ferrin wrote:

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".

Didn't it take ages to fuel the thing, making it incapable of
scrambling quickly?

With the Blackbirds, it's not so much fuel as it is the ancilliary
stuff, for example the Tri-Ethyl Borane needed to get the fuel burning (And
is Nasty Evil Stuff, handled more carefully (and much more dangerous)
than Nuclear Waste, and the hydraulic fluid, which is barely liquid
at most ambient temperatures and must be heated before flight on
standard days. Launching an A-12/F-12/SR-71 was a major operation, in
some ways more of a Space Launch than scrambling an airplane.

It's possible that special alert facilities could have been built for
them, with all the necessary reservoirs and preheaters & such, but
that would have tied the airplanes to specific fixed bases, and not
allowed them to deploy to dispersal sites in times of high alert.
Having your interceptors permanently stuck in known locations is just
hanging a giant ICBM target on that location.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

"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%.

In message , Peter Stickney
writes
In article ,
"John Carrier" writes:
A number of targets in column, at low altitude and at a high subsonic speed.
Generally engaged from head-on.

And spread out enough in time that you can't engage several at once,
and there won't be time to finish the current engagement and get the
next whatever (airplane/missile) coming inbound.

That's the goal of the attackers, but how reliably can they achieve it?

Pause and think how hard it is to do a comms-out multi-axis attack that
achieves anything like a simultaneous time-on-target, against an alert,
wary and aggressive enemy.

Manual systems, that
rely on human observers to watch teh scopes and vector the
interceptors or assign SAM targets are particularly vulnerable to this
method of attacking. (Each controller can really only handle one or
two targets at a time)

Attacking has the same problem. Easy to co-ordinate a handful of
aircraft, but how to achieve a wide arc of simultaneous attacks with a
common TOT?

--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk

On Sun, 2 Nov 2003 16:19:57 -0500, Peter Stickney wrote:
In article ,
ess (phil hunt) writes:
On Fri, 31 Oct 2003 01:13:20 -0700, Scott Ferrin wrote:

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".

Didn't it take ages to fuel the thing, making it incapable of
scrambling quickly?

With the Blackbirds, it's not so much fuel as it is the ancilliary
stuff, for example the Tri-Ethyl Borane needed to get the fuel burning (And
is Nasty Evil Stuff, handled more carefully (and much more dangerous)
than Nuclear Waste,

Did it ever dissolve the pilot, like the Me 163's fuel did?


--
"It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than
people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(Email: , but first subtract 275 and reverse
the last two letters).

A number of targets in column, at low altitude and at a high subsonic
speed.
Generally engaged from head-on.

And spread out enough in time that you can't engage several at once,
and there won't be time to finish the current engagement and get the
next whatever (airplane/missile) coming inbound. Manual systems, that
rely on human observers to watch teh scopes and vector the
interceptors or assign SAM targets are particularly vulnerable to this
method of attacking. (Each controller can really only handle one or
two targets at a time)

With a good system, and a skilled crew, its doable. And a challenge none
the less. OTOH, shooting a Mach 3 bogey at 70K+ was interesting as well.

R / John

In article , "Paul F Austin"
wrote:

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%.

First of all, I have no axe to grind, just so you know. My company had the
radar
and weapons system for all but the F-16/Sparrow, and the weapons for first 3
too.

I was focusing on some of the same issues that Pete pointed out, about basing,
launch, re-fueling, etc. all practical matters that (IIRC) were pretty much
ignored in the initial study. People sometimes think the Blackbird was a
super-aircraft because it flew so fast, but try to do a 3 minute scramble
in one.
And that was the mission they were being considered for.
Also, what about re-engagements, or alternate targeting?
What was it's turning radius again? It takes how long to get back on target?
Once you point this thing at a target, it's awfully tough to re-direct.

BTW, I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of the F-16 in the ADF
role. It was nonsense of the first order. It's probably still nonsense today
even if the F-16 is carrying AMRAAM. Aircraft range too short, engagement
time too limited, weapons envelope (IIRC) non-existent. If your GCI is not
perfect, you miss.

--
Harry Andreas
Engineering raconteur