US plans improved missiles to maintain air-to-air supremacy

www.janes.com...


US Air Force (USAF) and US Navy (USN) planners envisage three new air-to-air missiles intended to maintain air-combat supremacy.

Between the fielding of the new Raytheon AIM-120C-7 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile (AMRAAM) at the end of the decade, the services intend to develop and deploy at least two more AMRAAM variants, while an all-new missile is being studied as an eventual replacement for the AIM-120 series.

Good post. The US at one time looked at placing a ramjet booster on the missle to turn it into a long range weapon to compete with Soviet designs. I wonder if they will dust off that plan? Any idea if they plan a variant for the F-22 which requires smalled controll surfaces due to its internal storage on the plane? Kind of stupid if they dont eh?

Hold on. You Americans have been telling these kids for decades that training standards (like in the Tom Cruise movie) was paramount.
Now you are saying technology is more important? Tell me what a missile does now that it did not do 30 years ago.

Originally posted by stgeorge
Tell me what a missile does now that it did not do 30 years ago.

The Sparrow missile was not very effective. The new AMRAAM has a much higher PK and has a no escape zone that would make OPFOR wet thier pants. Its more accureat, more deadly and almost foolproof. THat being said, tech is important as well as training. The best trained fighters in the world flying a Mig-15 will still loose to a pilot in a F-22

Thrust vectoring AIM-9X (with six a'clock capability) is good start.


But there really isn't any long range missile now when Phoenix is going out of duty and AAAM was cancelled.

www.designation-systems.net...

Still not answering me.What makes your pilots better than the opposition?
When the "kill ratio" became one to one,there was a scandal in Viet Nam.

Training a pilot is exceedingly difficult and expensive. Too many protocols,procedures,equipment types,modifications,parts of the world,ect.
You cut out low level training which is a neccessity,so I was told.
In peace time you can afford to train a pilot for 10 years.What happens when you need replacements quickly?
Then,I think,that was when you Americans and British simplified training and gave each man one task on one kind of airplane. But even then,a pilot learned a few aircraft. To try to memorize everything now...impossible.
If you want men with photographic memories with superiour intelligence,put them in Intelligence,not in a cockpit.