Talk:AIM-54 Phoenix

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[edit] Active Guidance

"--- However visual target identification rules would disqualify the Phoenix which otherwise might seem an attractive way to quickly down errant terrorist-controlled air traffic, as with air combat patrol in peacetime."

I find this rather tasteless, but more importantly, extremely irrelevant.

[edit] Cost

Unit Cost: US$ 477,131 (in what year? What version) was asked by someone else. --/Mat 01:29, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I recall the most often quotes figure for price at $1,000,000 for the AIM-54c. That's quite a difference in price.68.68.224.129 21:43, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

US Navy FactFile still lists $477,131. But is also calls the '54 a "weapons control system", rather than part of one. So it may not be definative.--J Clear 18:51, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Check this resource for comparative pricing on AIM-54A (approx $400K) and AIM-54C (approx $1M): http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/phoenix.htm[1]--HJ 15:12, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] out of service?

Do we know whether the Phoenix is still in service with Iran? Unless we know for sure it isn't, we should be wary of putting the description in the past tense. -- Cabalamat 12:07, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It's a reasonable conclusion. They have never received any parts to maintain the missile, and all of their stock would be quite old or expended in training. They almost certainly have created their own version, or bought Russia's AA-9, or made their own exact copies. --14:49, 2 January 2007 (UTC)HJ--HJ 14:49, 2 January 2007 (UTC)== Iranian kills == Stop posting controversial, unverified information as if it were fact.

I think that instead the article should mention that "Supporters of these claims" (Tom Cooper and Farzad Bishop) of IRIAF Phoenix kills have FOIA documents from comtemporary USN reports confirming Tomcat engagements at long range as well as extensive testimony from both Iranian and also Iraqi pilots. AFAIK this information is "controversial" only in certain circles close to US military.
Their research is mostly based on stories of Iranian pilots. At best, a few kills may be confirmed by US intelligence reports and information from the very few Iraqi pilots interviewed.
I think the article is biased currently by implying that the best evidence to support the Iranian Phoenix kills is based on the poor performance of the IrAF. There is much better evidence available. --85.156.143.248 14:22, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

The part about a single missile destroying 4 fighter jets seems over the top and the overall numbers look bogus. If it was that good, the Americans would still be flying it... (the USAF never adopted it).

The Phoenix has a huge warhead and if it intercepted a flight of four in close formation, this isn't an impossibility, but it would be more believeable if Iraqi sources confirmed the claims. Perhaps a compromise from NPOV is "Iranian pilots claim>>>>". There hasn't been an air war yet that claims from both sides don't match up. As far as US removing it from service and USAF never adopting it...

As far as I have read, the Phoenix did shoot down two airplanes, which were flying close enough together to be within the Phoenix's blast zone. Four airplanes? Possible, but not likely to have happened. 04:11, 5 March 2007 (UTC)raryel

- One Quick comment - If I'm an Iraqi Flyer, and I see a Missle take out 2 of my buddies, I'll eject before the F14's get me. 2 caught in blast radius, the other two panic, and either eject or collide, or the engines flame out. Either way, one shot, 4 kills on radar. Think outside the box, it's unlikely but remotely possible, in multiple scenarios. Plus, to be fair, the anecdots of Iranian and Iraqi pilots should be given equal weight to the anecdotes of NATO pilots. And most books are based on interview, not dry mission logs and records. Really, the ethnocentrism is unbecoming- TSG 18 March 2007


1) Phoenix was retired in advance of Tomcat retiring to save money. Naval Aviation is governing by an attack mentality that focuses on improving strike capability. Furthermore, restrictive ROE prevent Phoenix being employed at its best ranges and the arrival of more advanced AMRAAM allowed Phoenix to be retired. Ironically, Tomcats were primarily Precision Strike platforms in their last decade of service so AAMs of any type were a secondary interest at best. VF-41 flew without any AAMs over Kosovo in order to save gas.

2) The USAF and USN were forced into a Shotgun wedding in 1990 in terms of AAM development. prior to that, each service had its Research and Development labs favoring service unique solutions. That said, there was no way USAF would adopt the Phoenix nor the Tomcat though ADC looked at both. Interservice relations were very sour and USAF fought Sidewinder development for years preferring to concentrate on AIM-4 Falcon. The F-4D was delivered without any Sidewinder capability at all due to this attitude resulting in field commanders such as the famed Col Robin Olds to modify his Phantoms in the combat theatre of Southeast Asia to carry Sidewinders due to poor performance of the Falcon over North Vietnam. Interestingly, the US was always a decade ahead of the former Soviet Union in terms of AAM development. In 1975, squabbling between the USAF and USN over next generation SRM led to Congress denying each service "their" preferred solutions and a modest upgrade to the AIM-9 Sidewinder (AIM-9M) was pursued instead allowing the Soviet union to reap the benefit of the extensive AIMVAL testing and evaluation and field the next generation R-73/AA-11 Archer almost 2 decades before the USAF and USN were able to filed AIM-9X (although the original ASRAAM was supposed to fill that niche, but suffered developmental issues resulting in US to initiate AIM-9X).--HJ 14:50, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] YF-12

Mentioning a similar missile was developed for the YF-12 fighter version of the Blackbird seems misleading. From what I can read on the web, the YF-12 was tested with the AIM-47B. While you could claim they are similar in that both were based on the original AIM-47, it seems like a stretch, just designed to mention the YF-12 in this article. Is there a good reason to keep the YF-12 sentence in this article that I'm not aware of?--J Clear 17:02, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it's a good reference as AIM-47 technology was leveraged to create the AIM-54. See: [2] What's interesting from historical perspective is that services were not getting along back then in terms of aircraft or missile development, but the prime contractors leveraged whatever they had developed for either service so technology did "cross-over" thanks to capitalism. Meanwhile, the USAF and USN were developing their own versions of Sparrow and Sidewinder after USAF was forced to introduce the Navy Phantom into its inventory.--HJ 15:17, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Photo

This is the first time I've seen a photo of the Phoenix without a set of longer triangular fins forward of those shown. Was that common? If not how about putting up one of the nuemorous DoD photos that show the typical configuration and put the present one further down with a discussion of the variant? Could it be one of the captive training models?--J Clear 17:02, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Ahh, now I see the wings come off for ground handling. I still think a photo with a fully assembled Phoenix, and with a cleaner nose, would be better for the lead picture.--J Clear 17:12, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
I dug past the NavyNews Photos, of which the wingless AIM-54 was the best of, and found the Defense Visual Information site. Picked out what I thought was some informative photos, cropped to change the focus from the F-14 to the AIM-54, uploaded and edited in. We'll see if anyone is outraged. And if someone thinks the first caption should have "6 Pack" in it.... I also thought about grabbing the complete original image to show the loading process.--J Clear 19:37, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Missile handling

Aviation Ordinanceman 2 & 3 Page 3-14, has a bit on Phoenix, not much. All of those books are public domain, that's how tpub got them, so I'd say any images on the page are also free / PD-USGov. Lots of missile handling information there too, including missile color codes. ADU-399 used to handle the missile. LAU-93 used to attach the missile to aircraft. TS-3479/AWM-23 go/no go missile test set for AIM-54. I don't know if any of this is worth adding, but here it is. --Dual Freq 16:06, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ex missile tech

I was part of the Avionics and Fire control shop in VF-211 during the years '79 through '83. We had combined the rates of AT (Avionics Tech) and AQ (Fire Control Tech) into one shop called the IWT or Integrated Weapons Team. I'm fairly familiar with the capabilities and difficulties of maintaining Tomcats and I don't see where the Iranians could have kept the F-14 as anything but a gun bird past the early eighties.

Just so you nice folks know where I'm coming from.

Even with the full support of Grumman, NAESU, and the finest techs the Navy could churn out it was a constant battle to keep the the F-14 in top shape. Not because of any bad design flaws but because you have a sophisticated computer and radar system in a VERY dynamic aircraft. Go ahead, take your Pentium II, swing it over your head until you have it pulling anywhere from 3 to 6 G's and do it three or four times a day. See how long your system stays up. Then try it without any intermediate level tech support. (oh, hey! The ground techs found the fault in the radar....now what?)

Next consideration is the fact that due to strength and weight considerations the Tomcat was built using a lot of dissimular metals in contact with each other. Corrosion control was a constant and daily chore. An undermaintained F-14 or any high performance aircraft would become dangerous to fly in less than a year. And remember they are not getting anymore spare parts. They were constantly canniblizing more and more aircraft to keep fewer and fewer flying.

And as far the Iranians building exact duplicates of the Phoenix missile, Oh puh-leese, give me a break! This isn't an artillery shell or an oversized bottle rocket. This was the Phoenix goddamn Missile we're talking about. Nine different active rader modes, 20+ semi-active modes and 5 different IR modes, with the on-board capibility to decide which was best to use, just incase somebody got cute with the ECM. Good luck. Add to that the fact that the warhead was incredibly lethal and sophisticated. A 50 yard sure kill radius that tapered off from there, with the missile still capable of a greater than 50% kill chance even if it misses by a 150 yards. Thatsa whole big piece of sky that becomes un-inhabitable. BigDon 12:00, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

- Why couldn't Iran build an exact copy? They have a huge number of western educated engineers, expertise from Russia as well as indigeonous and numerous existing samples to use as templates. The AIM54 may have been state of the art for its time but I'd wager as a piece of electronic signal tracking hardware it is a level of magnitude less sophisticated than the cell phone in my pocket. (Nicodemus)

  • That did come off as a bit trollish, didn't it? Sorry. It was late when I typed that up. I was talking about then not now.

This isn't like when the Phoenicians ran that ship aground and allowed the Romans to capture it. A year later the seas were full of Roman vessels of Phoenician design. And I can tell you why. Ever hear of strategic materials and proprietal processes? An industrial base? Semiconductor factories? The Romans only needed wood to copy the the enemies design. Just the nose cone was beyond the Iranians capabilities. What do think that's made of? A rader transparent ceramic that can withstands going mach 6 plus the speed of the aircraft. Which itself was covered with a unique paint. You don't whip those out in a pottery shop.

That would be the least of their issues. The Iranians had just had a violent overthrow of goverment, anybody who was a "Western educated engineer" had seen this coming and ran like hell. Its called a brain drain. They weren't building their own weapons systems, they were buying them. Even before the revolution. Do you know how long it took the Russians to come up with something close? The Russians had a copy of the Aim-54 stats and designs long before the revolution and they couldn't match it in anything smaller than a bus until the ninties.

I do not for a moment doubt the Iranians courage and resolve, just their industrial capabilities. A point. If you followed the Iran/Iraq war which came later, the Iranians repeatedly used troops walking in a double row in front of their tanks treads to protect the tanks from mines. This shows incredible courage and resolve but it also shows they couldn't replace TANKS for goodness sakes. How about a metal detector or two? A simple flail tank maybe? Those don't even take a rocket scientist. See what I'm trying to get at here? BigDon 21:51, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

If we are talking Today, 2007 - Iran is building nuclear weapons, nuclear power, and home grown military aircraft. Today they have the industry to do it. In they 80's the would import talent and carefully use the limited inventory they have. Back in the 80's , probably hire consultants and engineers, hand build and maintain the meager reserves you have, as well as you can, import all the talent and tech you can find.. We know in the 80's Iran and Iraq didn't dog fight very much. Our RIO's were spectators the whole time. An F-14 turns on that big radar, everyone in that hemisphere knows, and probably runs away from it. After the first few engagements, Both Iran and Iraq didn't risk losing air craft to combat - it's in the smithsonian archives. The US Navy got a civilian engineer to develop a maintenece program that is put in to practice by enlisted mechanics to maintain airframes that get constant use. The Iranians with their oil ecomnomy reportedly had a team of well educated engineers working full time to maintain and reverse engineer the aircraft and missles, and probably used ten times the manhours the USN did to maintain the aircraft - not a problem, they had more air craft than qualified pilots, and rarely flew the aircraft, according the the Smithsonian anyway.

Should we believe that after 1982 Iran could field 79 fully armed and crewed F-14's performing up to USN Standards? No. But is it reasonable to assume they could keep a dozen F14's fully armed and able to fly with second rate AIM 54 knock off's based on stolen plans supplied by the Russians using imported technology and a handful of full time engineers? Iran always has used the F14's as a platform for launching Phoenix missles. They operated from airstrips, not catapults, and never got close enough to dog fight. The protected them as unreplaceable long range weapons, and didn't risk them, I'd bet the pilots were under orders no to exceed 3 G's to protect the airframe. They could never build 'em; but keep a hand full of 'em running well enough to launch a missle from altitude.

That's all the Iranian expatriates claim. That to this day a "Persian Cat" can take off, turn on that big radar, engage a target at long range with an AIM 54 knock off, presumably kill the target, and land. They never said they were engaging in "Top Gun" manuvers, catapulting and traping on a carrier everyday with perfectly maintained aircraft and nominal spec AIM54 Phoenix Missles.

Look at the problem like an Iranian general, you might find a compromise between black and white, you may find a Persian Cat colored in shades of gray. -TSG

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