Phoenix missile making a comeback

[Jeff]

Well for NASA research anyway. I wonder how many Phoenix missiles have been fired from an F-15?

 

NASA eyes Navy missile for research

AIM-54 could provide cheap technology test

BY JIM SKEEN, Staff Writer

LA Daily News

Article Last Updated:

 

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE - NASA is studying a Navy missile designed to shoot down enemy cruise missiles and aircraft for possible use in high-speed aeronautics research.

 

NASA Dryden Flight Research Center is looking at the possibility of using AIM-54 Phoenix missiles to conduct the agency's legacy of high-speed research. The missiles, retired from Navy service in 2004, could provide a relatively cheap way to test technology in flight conditions at speeds of Mach3, about 2,100mph, to Mach5, about 3,500mph.

 

"We have a target of under $5,000 a launch if it were to move into flight test," said Thomas Jones, Dryden's principal investigator for the development of the missiles as research vehicles.

 

"We are looking at a minimum of two flights per year."

 

A Phoenix missile is 13feet long, 15inches in diameter with a wingspan of 36inches. It weighs about 1,000pounds in its military configuration. The front end of each missile could be emptied out by removing the warhead and radar-tracking systems and by installing a newer, smaller guidance system.

 

"That leaves a large, internal volume we can install payloads - about 5.5cubic feet," Jones said.

 

The missiles could be used to test a variety of equipment and technology in flight conditions, including electronic systems, thermal-protection systems and engine-inlet designs.

 

The concept came in the wake of the X-43 program, a seven-year, $230million effort that resulted in three flights - one of which was a failure and two that set records and provided a wealth of data for researchers. The last X-43 flight, in 2004, hit speeds of nearly 7,000mph.

 

Jones said a colleague, Trong T. Bui, came up with the concept of using Phoenix missiles as a way to conduct high-speed research cost-effectively with a quick turnaround time between missions.

 

"He had an idea that three flights over a number of years was not a high-enough flight rate," Jones said.

 

The concept calls for the missile to be taken aloft by Dryden's F-15B research aircraft. The aircraft, flying at speeds of up to Mach2, about 1,400mph, would release the missile over the Pacific Ocean.

 

The missile would accelerate to speeds approaching Mach5, and then, with its fuel exhausted, it would crash into the ocean.

 

"We're in the design phase," Jones said. "We hope to do some captive carries (where a missile is taken aloft but not released) with the airplane with this big missile hanging off of it."

 

A decision on funding flight research is not expected before 2008.

http://www.dailynews.com/antelopevalley/ci_5098862

[Kensuke]

AIM-54 Phoenix is/was overrated. Only combat firing resulted in a miss against a MiG-25 IIRC.

 

Still, if NASA can use the leftover stockpile for research, it isn't a total loss.

 

F-15 should be able to carry and fire the Phoenix, but not guide it. It was designed to be used solely in conjunction with the F-14's uber-awesome AWG-9.

 

- John

Edited January 28, 2007 by Kensuke

[a77]

AIM-54 Phoenix is/was overrated. Only combat firing resulted in a miss against a MiG-25 IIRC.

 

The Iran did use it in the war agenst Iraq.

[Animal Mother]

AIM-54 Phoenix is/was overrated. Only combat firing resulted in a miss against a MiG-25 IIRC.

 

Still, if NASA can use the leftover stockpile for research, it isn't a total loss.

 

F-15 should be able to carry and fire the Phoenix, but not guide it. It was designed to be used solely in conjunction with the F-14's uber-awesome AWG-9.

 

- John

 

The IRIAF Tomcat fleet scored around 40 kills with their A model AIM-54's. The majority where against enemy fighters, including 3 shot down and one damaged with one missile. Hardly a failure.

[Corinthian]

AIM-54 Phoenix is/was overrated. Only combat firing resulted in a miss against a MiG-25 IIRC.

 

Still, if NASA can use the leftover stockpile for research, it isn't a total loss.

 

F-15 should be able to carry and fire the Phoenix, but not guide it. It was designed to be used solely in conjunction with the F-14's uber-awesome AWG-9.

 

- John

 

Even in tests, the AIM-54 missed a few targets. IIRC, in the scenario for which the Phoenix was developed, there was an 80% success rate of five missiles against six targets (my math seems off...) What makes the Phoenix superb is its long range and, with the Tomcat, the ability to engage several targets simultaneously. ISTR this was unheard of then when the pilot had to maintain radar contact with the target until the radar guided missile hits. Phoenix was sorta a fire-and-forget radar guided missile. The Phoenix was designed to shoot down enemy bombers and cruise missiles. Against a fighter with a human pilot in it, the Phoenix, if shot at long ranges, would likely miss.

 

1 miss against a single MiG doesn't constitute a failure.

Edited January 29, 2007 by TomasCTT

[Burncycle360]

We turned a missile into a research platform... lets go the other way!

 

Mount modified Pegasus XL on a B-52 and shoot down AWACS from a thousand miles away

[Kensuke]

I'd take all of Iran's kill claims with a grain of salt.

 

Is the AIM-54 completely useless? No. Is it the uber-missile that everybody was crying over when the F-14 was retired? Also no.

 

- John

[Kensuke]

Even in tests, the AIM-54 missed a few targets. IIRC, in the scenario for which the Phoenix was developed, there was an 80% success rate of five missiles against six targets (my math seems off...) What makes the Phoenix superb is its long range and, with the Tomcat, the ability to engage several targets simultaneously. ISTR this was unheard of then when the pilot had to maintain radar contact with the target until the radar guided missile hits. Phoenix was sorta a fire-and-forget radar guided missile. The Phoenix was designed to shoot down enemy bombers and cruise missiles. Against a fighter with a human pilot in it, the Phoenix, if shot at long ranges, would likely miss.

 

1 miss against a single MiG doesn't constitute a failure.

 

Exactly the point. The mission that it was designed for is nearly gone, and the use against a fighter with any halfway decent pilot is dubious.

 

- John

[Animal Mother]

I'd take all of Iran's kill claims with a grain of salt.

 

Is the AIM-54 completely useless? No. Is it the uber-missile that everybody was crying over when the F-14 was retired? Also no.

 

- John

 

Why exactly? You are aware that the sources that list the kills have made sure that they are confimed from both Iranian and Iraqi sources, and in many cases a third party as well? Not purely Iranian claims.

[Koesj]

I'd take all of Iran's kill claims with a grain of salt.

 

Is the AIM-54 completely useless? No. Is it the uber-missile that everybody was crying over when the F-14 was retired? Also no.

 

- John

 

That doesn't take away from the fact that at first sight you provide us with a baseless comment. I hope you're not clutching on straws to keep that 'clarification' intact, there's no need to do that kind of thing. Regardless of the relative succes of the AIM-54A/AWG-9 combination

[Sikkiyn]

The database of air-air you are refering to is the ACIG Journal.

Yes they are very picky about data, and are considered one of the most reliable sources on the open web.

 

US air victories during the Gulf War

 

Iranian Air-to-Air Victories 1976-1981

 

 

 

AIM-54 Phoenix is/was overrated. Only combat firing resulted in a miss against a MiG-25 IIRC.

 

Still, if NASA can use the leftover stockpile for research, it isn't a total loss.

 

F-15 should be able to carry and fire the Phoenix, but not guide it. It was designed to be used solely in conjunction with the F-14's uber-awesome AWG-9.

 

- John

 

Exactly the point. The mission that it was designed for is nearly gone, and the use against a fighter with any halfway decent pilot is dubious.

 

- John

I'd take all of Iran's kill claims with a grain of salt.

 

Is the AIM-54 completely useless? No. Is it the uber-missile that everybody was crying over when the F-14 was retired? Also no.

 

- John

Edited January 29, 2007 by Sikkiyn

[DKTanker]

The database of air-air you are refering to is the ACIG Journal.

Yes they are very picky about data, and are considered one of the most reliable sources on the open web.

 

US air victories during the Gulf War

 

Iranian Air-to-Air Victories 1976-1981

Between the two links I count 29 launches with 28 shootdowns (not including the two additional MiG 23s downed from the damage of the targeted aircraft on 7 January 1981). Looks to be about 96% hit/kill rate. Hmmm, I guess it is overrated if you're looking for a 100% hit/kill rate.

[Kensuke]

The database of air-air you are refering to is the ACIG Journal.

Yes they are very picky about data, and are considered one of the most reliable sources on the open web.

 

US air victories during the Gulf War

 

Iranian Air-to-Air Victories 1976-1981

 

I count 29 in that article. Six of which are unconfirmed, and two listed rather precariously as "close calls". Thats not quite the "around 40" that Mother was claiming, which is why I suspect he was using overblown Iranian claims.

 

While I'll admit 21-23 confirmed kills is nothing to sneeze at, let's consider for a moment that we're talking about the IrAF. Not the sharpest tool in the shed. They only shot down one aircraft in the Gulf War (A F/A-18 with an AA-9 on the first night). There is also no mention as to how many AIM-54s were fired in total, in order to put this into context.

 

Koesj, I'm not clutching at anything. I merely said that the Phoenix was overrated. No US Navy F-14 ever shot down anything with a Phoenix despite the fact that the F-14/AIM-54 combination was in service for years and the F-14 saw plenty of combat. It was designed to kill bombers threatening a CVBG at extreme stand off ranges. Against fighters the weapon of choice was AIM-7 and AIM-9. The early weapons tests with the alleged 80% success rate all involved dumb drone aircraft.

 

Plus the second link needs to take off the claimed MiG-25 kill by the AIM-54. It was confirmed by the US Navy as missing, and the Foxbat later ran out of fuel as it retreated from the NFZ.

 

- John

Edited January 29, 2007 by Kensuke

[Kensuke]

Between the two links I count 29 launches with 28 shootdowns (not including the two additional MiG 23s downed from the damage of the targeted aircraft on 7 January 1981). Looks to be about 96% hit/kill rate. Hmmm, I guess it is overrated if you're looking for a 100% hit/kill rate.

 

That's because you're making shit up. The article makes no mention of launches. Only kills. And not all of those 29 are confirmed.

 

How do you know there weren't 100 launches and 21-24 confirmed kills?

 

Iran was supplied with exactly 285 AIM-54A missiles before the revolution. Now they're using modified Hawks in whatever airframes they can manage to get flyable. What the hell happened to those 200+ Phoenixes if they only fired 29 times.

 

And please don't use the alleged sabotage story. I highly doubt Grumman/Hughes engineers could fuck up 200+ missiles under close guard as they're evacuating the country. If there was any sabotage effort, it apparently didn't affect the IIRAF too badly.

 

- John

Edited January 29, 2007 by Kensuke

[DKTanker]

That's because you're making shit up. The article makes mention of no launches. Only kills. And not all of those 29 are confirmed.- John

I'm making stuff up? I noted that one of the tables mentioned a launch and a miss, I take that at its word that it counts launches and hit/misses. In anycase who was it that said this

AIM-54 Phoenix is/was overrated. Only combat firing resulted in a miss against a MiG-25 IIRC.

Now that was making sh*t up. Edited January 29, 2007 by DKTanker

[Kensuke]

In 1987 they reported only 50 usable AIM-54s left.

 

Where did all their missiles go if only 29 were fired early in the war?

 

- John

Edited January 29, 2007 by Kensuke

[DKTanker]

In 1987 they reported only 50 usable AIM-54s left.

 

Where did all their missiles go if only 29 were fired early in the war?- John

I don't know. Why don't you see what happened during the years 1982-1986. You're the one making the claim the AIM-54 was overrated and near useless. Put some numbers up, prove your point.

[Kensuke]

I'm making stuff up? I noted that one of the tables mentioned a launch and a miss, I take that at its word that it counts launches and hit/misses.

 

It's still considered a claimed kill. Which means it could be claimed a hit by the Iranians, called a missed by the Iraqis, and ACIG decided to side with the Iraqis while keeping the claim up.

 

The US Gulf War page makes no mention of misses, even though the AIM-7 was fired more times than the kills listed on that page.

 

Now that was making sh*t up.

 

I'll admit it, I should have said *US* combat firing.

 

Happy now?

 

- John

[Kensuke]

I don't know. Why don't you see what happened during the years 1982-1986. You're the one making the claim the AIM-54 was overrated and near useless. Put some numbers up, prove your point.

 

The air to air portion became less intense as the Iraq-Iran war dragged on. After '82 it became largely a ground slugging match. I only know of a couple additional shoot downs outside that chart involving the Phoenix in Iran.

 

You can't expect me to prove a negative. I posed the question about what happened to their missiles if you claim there were a 96% success rate. There were nowhere near 285 Phoenix kills and their stockpile was severely depleted if not totally gone by wars end. If the Phoenix did have a 96% success rate and they fired nearly all their missiles there wouldn't have been a air war in '91 because the IrAF would have been a hollow shell.

 

- John

Edited January 29, 2007 by Kensuke

[DKTanker]

You can't expect me to prove a negative.

 

- John

I'm not asking you to prove a negative, I as well as some others, are asking you to prove your assertions. What is the criterian on which you base your assertion that the AIM-54 is/was overrated and or near useless? According to whom? What are the numbers to back up your claim. From what are they derived? How does the AIM-54 stack up against Soviet counterpart the AA-9 Amos (R-33)? How does the AIM-54 stack up against the AIM-7 for that matter.

 

In your opinion is/was the AIM-54 overrated because it really never was used in its intended role? Was that a legtimate role at the time? If weapons aren't used in their original intended role does that mean by definition they are/were overrated?

 

IOW, nothing more than is asked of others when similar claims are made. We devoted better than a month and several hundred posts about the T-72 and whether or not it received a bad rap. Take a look at the autoloader yea/nay thread....all kinds of assertions being made, all kinds of proofs being demanded.

[Wouter2]

Plus the second link needs to take off the claimed MiG-25 kill by the AIM-54. It was confirmed by the US Navy as missing, and the Foxbat later ran out of fuel as it retreated from the NFZ.

- John

Didn't that MiG-25 ran out of fuel at least partly due to it having to make highspeed manoevres to escape from the Phoenix? In which case the missile should get partial credit for the loss of the plane; if it had not been fired upon it would have been able to land, presumably.

 

As for the number of firings, the ACIG table does not give mere launches, it only looks at claimed successes, some of which were not confirmed or were only damaged planes. So lots of missilis could have been launched and probably were. However, one can hardly claim that the AIM-54 could not hit a fighter, as it did hit many times in the Iran-Iraqi war. I guess that most Iraqi planes did not have proper warning systems (allthough I would guess the Mirages had decent systems).

[zakk]

The database of air-air you are refering to is the ACIG Journal.

Yes they are very picky about data, and are considered one of the most reliable sources on the open web.

Well, there is picky and there is picky...

 

They still keep listing the downing by the Syrian Air Force of 3 Israeli F-15, 7 F16 and 1 E-2C. Yes, they are listed as "Claims/unconfirmed", but they should be listed under "Crap/BS". Listing claims that are obviously false is a little bit odd, at least when they are not commented.

 

Other things on ACIG seems to be better, though.

 

 

 

 

 

zakk (member of ACIG)

Edited January 29, 2007 by zakk

[JOE BRENNAN]

Well, there is picky and there is picky...

 

They still keep listing the downing by the Syrian Air Force of 3 Israeli F-15, 7 F16 and 1 E-2C. Yes, they are listed as "Claims/unconfirmed", but they should be listed under "Crap/BS". Listing claims that are obviously false is a little bit odd, at least when they are not commented.

 

Other things on ACIG seems to be better, though.

zakk (member of ACIG)

I don't think you're being picky. The quality of the lists there is mixed at best. I know the Korean War lists well and those are not very complete or reliable. Or I guess like AIM-54 effectiveness, compared to what? there are lots of accurate entries in the KW list though with the persistent misleading practice of crediting one side's losses to a particular pilot on the other side, when I know the sources they used don't really give that info (if any source possibly could). But there are a lot of wrong entries, particularly US losses to non-MiG causes (clearly so from extensive documentation in original records, besides being flagged as non-MiG in the published/web sources ACIG used) that are credited to MiG's anyway. And many or most claims of one side are left out. There are a multiple of Soviet claims to the ones shown in the list; that gives a misleading impression too of the actual nature of the air war. And the Chinese claims are very incomplete; moreoever the sorting of whether Soviets or Chinese actually scored when both claimed, is arbitrarily decided in favor of the Soviets in all cases. So it gives some correct info, but a tough judge of good research would say the whole list is tainted by the mistakes and is crap; and would also comment that pretty limited sources are used to begin with. I won't judge, but it makes me cautious of everything else there.

 

On Iran-Iraq I've no idea of the real quality of research. There's reason to believe it's deeper than just books and web resources in that case, but I believe it's still predominantly the Iranian side of things presented. We must take one side's accounts of air combat with caution.

 

On the topic (or the main tangent ) a ratio of several missiles per kill, realistically, is not that bad. A reasonable tactic with missiles of that vintage (often true even of "successful" later AIM-7 combat use by the USAF) would be to shoot-shoot-look, so you're starting with 2 missiles per kill if the weapon is perfect. Again compared to what? But I don't think we have the solidly established facts to say in AIM-54/Iran case; I don't think we reliably know the number of missiles expended in combat or the number of successes. It seems safe to say AIM-54 had some successes in its many combat opportunities in Iranian service, unlike its few combat opportunities in USN service. Beyond that uncertain IMO.

 

Joe

Edited January 29, 2007 by JOE BRENNAN

[Animal Mother]

As for the number of firings, the ACIG table does not give mere launches, it only looks at claimed successes, some of which were not confirmed or were only damaged planes. So lots of missilis could have been launched and probably were. However, one can hardly claim that the AIM-54 could not hit a fighter, as it did hit many times in the Iran-Iraqi war. I guess that most Iraqi planes did not have proper warning systems (allthough I would guess the Mirages had decent systems).

 

Not only the Mirage F.1EQ's. The MiG-25PD/RB's reportedly had very good RWR and where able to pick up the AWG-9 very quickly. The late model Su-22's had pretty good RWR as well. (Su-22M-4?)

 

Also the war became a testing ground for the Soviet Union against US systems like the I-HAWK and the F-14, as they sent "advisors" and some pretty advanced gear towards the end of the war for testing in combat conditons. (Including later model SPS-141 ECM pods to see how effective they where against HAWK/I-HAWK).

 

The air to air portion became less intense as the Iraq-Iran war dragged on. After '82 it became largely a ground slugging match. I only know of a couple additional shoot downs outside that chart involving the Phoenix in Iran.

 

Largely a ground slogging match? Why did then the Iraqis buy shitloads of SAM/AAA systems after 82? They purchased no less than 18,000 heavy SAM's from USSR/France during the war. In 1987 there where 60 SAM sites around Basra alone!

 

If the IRIAF was dead and gone, why did they need that mutch protection against aerial threats?

Edited January 29, 2007 by Animal Mother

[wallaby bob]

I'd take all of Iran's kill claims with a grain of salt.

 

 

 

- John

 

KENSUKE. Seems that should apply to the NASA press release on the X43A also. The figures given, or the blurb, are plainly wrong. A velocity of Mach 6.8 is clearly NOT a tripling of Mach 3.2.Even a hired press officer should be capable of grasping that! WB