The AIM-120 AMRAAM receives information about the location of the target from the aircraft before its launch. The AIM-120C has smaller control surfaces to fulfill F/A-22's internal carriage requirements and also features an improved warhead. It can travel at speeds of mach 4 and has range of more than 100Km. The missile has home-on-jamming capabilities. The missile's layout is divided into guidance, armament, propulsion and control sections. The AIM-120C-7 development began in 1998 and included improvements in homing and greater range. The AIM-120C-6 contained an improved fuse (Target Detection Device) compared to its predecessor. The AIM C has been steadily upgraded since it was introduced. The AMRAAM is in service with the US Air Force (USAF), US Navy (USN), and over 25 US-allied nations. It is an all-weather, missile manufactured by Raytheon. The AIM-120 AMRAAM is a medium-range air-to-air missile. Suffice to say, no missile does it: AIM-120D can pull 40 g, whereas modern fighters can pull in excess of 10 g. Maneuverability always helps with evading missiles, and BVR missile used against Mach 0.9 target would have to pull 10-20 times as many g’s as target to secure a kill. In fact, jamming and IFF issues mean that BVR missiles are far more likely to be used as a WVR weapon than in their intended purpose.

Higher speed allows it to reduce time to target, and thus opponent’s reaction time, as well as to retain energy for longer after engine has burned out. Thus, large NEZ (no-escape zone) is far more important. Range can be reduced even further if enemy uses jammers. Velocity loss after burn-out also varies with altitude, with 25% of current velocity being lost every 150 s at 24 km, 25 s at 12 km and 5 s at sea level. Range varies on altitude, with best range for missiles are in high-altitude rare-atmosphere conditions, where maneuverability is almost nonexistent at sea level, range is not much more than visual. BVR missiles are never fired at maximum range due to meager Probability of kill against fighter aircraft. This chance drops as the missile is fired at longer ranges as it runs out of overtake speed at long ranges, and if the target can force the missile to turn it might bleed off enough speed that it can no longer chase the target. Typically, if the missile has sufficient energy during the terminal phase, which comes from being launched at close range to the target from an aircraft with an altitude and speed advantage, it will have a good chance of success. The kill probability is determined by several factors, including aspect (head-on interception, side-on or tail-chase), altitude, the speed of the missile and the target, and how hard the target can turn. NEZ is not a zone where a hit is guaranteed rather, it is a zone where enemy aircraft cannot outrun missile, waiting for it to run out of fuel, but rather has to outturn it. The greater the A-Pole means less time and possibly greater distance that the launch aircraft needs to support the missile guidance until missile seeker acquisition. This is the slant range between the launch aircraft and target at the time that the missile begins active guidance or acquires the target with the missile's active seeker. The greater the F-Pole, the greater the confidence that the launch aircraft will achieve air superiority with that missile. This is the slant range between the launch aircraft and target, at the time of interception. When alerted visually or by a warning system the target attempts a last-ditch-maneuver sequence. The Launch Success Zone is the range within which there is a high (defined) kill probability against a target that remains unaware of its engagement until the final moment. One major issue with BVR is still unreliable IFF technology (Identification friend or foe).Ī number of terms frequently crop up in discussions of air-to-air missile performance. For that purpose we need Beyond Visual Range (BVR) missiles.īeyond visual range air-to-air missiles (BVRAAM) are long-range missiles used by fighters to knock out enemy fighters, bombers, tankers, drones and other aircraft from ranges beyond 37km.

The goal of beyond visual range (BVR) air-to-air combat is to kill the enemy at long range-before he can harm you.

Aim 120 vs pl12