On Tue, 26 Jul 2005 20:31:46 -0500, "John Carrier"
wrote:

By now the F-14 and two boogies were head to head about 20
miles apart. The crew got a Phoenix Missile lock at about 10 miles,
although it was a close range for phoenix. The pilot went ahead with
fox1, he fired an AIM-54 phoenix. Following the smoke path of the
phoenix he saw a ball of fire from the wing of MiG-21 that was
breaking-up. Moments later a splash down from pieces of MiG-21 were
visible in the ocean. In the mean while F-14 pilot observed the second
MiG-21doing a hard G-turn away from the fire ball since the 2 MiGs were
flying too close together. He was going back toward Iraq. The F-14 in
pursuit could not get any radar lock on the second MiG-21 before he
went super sonic.


Given a 180 turn at 10NM while the Turkey is closing, I think the Mig could
easily have been run down. And there's no problem with locking a target in
the rear hemisphere, supersonic or not.

The kill-shot is claimed on a head-to-head situation. That would be in
the 1000-1100kt Vc region which means that the interval from Rmax to
Rmin would be pretty short.

I'm an old AF guy, so don't have clue one about the AIM-54 (beyond
knowing multiple engagement capabiility, launch-n-leave, and
exceptional range), but I don't know the sequence of firing, guidance,
arming, ranging, etc operations.

Submitted by IRANIAN F-14 Pilot

Maybe some Tom-drivers in this forum will comment, but I've got to
think that in a head-to-head pass with a system lock at ten miles
there is no possible way that the AIM-54 could function.


It's well inside Vmin for a AIM-7E-2 and wouldn't be a viable shot for
an AIM-9J, P, or M.

I think your memory is cloudy. 10NM is nicely within the AIM-7 envelope.
It's also in the heart of the AIM-54 ACM Active mode envelope IIRC.

10NM is just great for a low aspect shot, but head-on is a distinctly
different situation.

And, inside ten miles, even a MiG-21 can be easily acquired visually.

Head-on @ ten miles? Not with these eyes when they were 20/15 and on a good
day. Of course, the T-38 (and to a very slightly lesser degree, the F-5)
were more difficult still.

We were doing a low level escorted attack on Red Rio range in the
Holloman complex in which I was leading a four-ship of AT-38 "bombers"
onto the tac range with a pair of F-15A's flying outrigger escort for
me. The defenders were a pair of F-5E Aggressors deployed from Nellis.

I visually acquired the pair of F-5s and called them out for the
offensive force at "5 miles"---GCI confirmed the visual, but corrected
my range to 13 miles.

With a radar contact for cueing on the visual search quadrant, visuals
at 10 miles on MiG-21 sized targets are not out of thequestion.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
www.thunderchief.org
www.thundertales.blogspot.com