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| Science & Technology |
| The Best Air-to-Air Missile in the World Is in Sweden |
| 2014-07-25 |
| AIM-120D model of America’s AMRAAM. Missile manufacturers are notoriously coy when it comes to releasing details of the their products’ performance. What little MBDA has said regarding Meteor indicates a range significantly greater than 62 miles and sustained speeds of at least Mach 4. By contrast, in its official fact sheet the U.S. Air Force attributes the early-model AIM-120 with a range of 20-plus miles and “supersonic” speed. The AIM-120D version should extend the baseline range by around 50 percent. The actual effective ranges of both the Meteor and the AMRAAM are very likely to be well in excess of published figures. |
| Posted by:Uncle Phester |
| #6 What AlanC said. Spent five years hauling around a 20mm pod until the E model came along. What was old is new again. |
| Posted by: Total War 2014-07-25 12:47 |
| #5 AIM 54 was unreliable, expensive and needed a big jet. |
| Posted by: Zorba Fleresh4606 2014-07-25 12:24 |
| #4 So 40 years later we are catching up to the capabilities of the AIM-54 Phoenix? |
| Posted by: Classical_Liberal 2014-07-25 10:39 |
| #3 Mike, that sounds an awful lot like the reasoning I heard about why the Phantom didn't need guns 50 years ago. Hey, our missles will get them, no dog fights no more. How'd that work out? Maybe there'll come a day, but is it now? |
| Posted by: AlanC 2014-07-25 08:14 |
| #2 ...This is one reason why the USAF and USN have been surprisingly unworried by the supposed inability of the F-35 to dogfight: with datalink from E-2s, E-3s, and Other Sources, the -35 doesn't have to. They'll be whacking the bad guys from fifty miles out and the targets won't know a thing till it's all over. Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2014-07-25 07:40 |
| #1 |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2014-07-25 07:10 |