Military Aircraft Systems

Air-to-Air Missiles Objective: To know the different types of Air-to-Air Missiles in service with the Royal Air Force.

Air-to-Air Missiles Contents: • ASRAAM • AMRAAM • Meteor • AIM-9L Sidewinder • Skyflash

AIM-132 ASRAAM

AIM-132 ASRAAM Advanced Short-Range Air-to-Air Missile • Typhoon FGR4 • Tornado GR4 • Tornado F3 (Retired 2011)

AIM-132 ASRAAM • ASRAAM is a highly manoeuvrable, Infra-Red (IR) guided, air-to-air missile able to counter sophisticated IR countermeasures. • The missile is the world’s first IR missile to use a sapphire-domed staring array detector, which detects the whole target aircraft. • The missile has a fire-and-forget capability, thus the pilot can engage multiple targets with several missiles simultaneously. • Following release, the missile accelerates to speeds in excess of Mach 3 whilst being guided to the target using its IR seeker.

Dimensions:

Length: 2.9m

Diameter: 0.17m

Weight: 87kg AIM-132 ASRAAM

Performance:

Range: 8nmls+ Speed: Mach 3+ Sensor: IR staring array with inertial guidance

Questions?