AIM-54 Phoenix's radar is on from the launch

[VilleYrjola]

Hello

I've been running the tutorial mission for a bit and noticed something "strange". My Tomcats launch their AIM-54s and some of them activate their terminal guidance radar straight away and it stays on for the whole flight. Is this something related to the fact that I have AEW airborne at the time of the launch and it detects AIM-54s targets as well or something else? If AEW is out of the question could the Tomcats launch them and then for some reason change their course causing AIM-54 to be out of their guidance "cone"? Or maybe even a bug?

[ExNusquam]

You need to have the Tomcat's radars on for the DL to the AIM-54 to work...otherwise it goes active as soon as it's launched.

[VilleYrjola]

Thanks. I thought that might be the reason for this. Do they switch on their radars as well if they drop out of the radar "cone" mid-flight?

[ExNusquam]

Yes. Contrary to popular belief, the AIM-54 required the Tomcat to support the missile most of the way to the target.

[VilleYrjola]

That's why I was so confused when seeing this behaviour. I have this vague memory of hearing something about these radar guided missiles burning their radars if they are switched on for too long. Is that true or just a misinterpretation?

[magi]

I was also wondering about this issue.... thank you ex.....

[mikmykWS]

If you guys could post some files showing the behavior it would help us investigate.

Thanks!

Mike

[ComDev]

The missiles will go Pitbull (autonomous) if the launching platform cannot provide frequent enough target updates, if the target is destroyed, disappers, or is manually dropped. Jamming can also cause this. The weapon will then HOJ and also try to use its onboard radar, whatever works best there and then.

The AIM-54 uses time-shared SARH for mid-course guidance and have the same limitations as vanilla SARH. Instead of self-destructing when guidance is lost, it activates the radar and the onboard autopilot flies the weapon to the last know intercept point and altitude.

More advanced weapons like AMRAAM uses datalink and will not drop the leach as easily and can even re-direct weapons to new targets.

[Vulcan101]

I thought Phoenix had an active "off the rail" mode to attack targets at short range.

[NakedWeasel]

I'm not going to say how I know, but (it has been said) the E-2C Hawkeye could also guide the Phoenix to a successful intercept at maximum possible range, regardless of the Tomcat's radar. There was a discussion on the H2 forums about this, where I was told to cease and desist in making statements about classified information. I think that was almost 20 years ago. [8D]