I got thinking about this a few days ago, the F22 carries shrt range heat seeking missiles in a bay, acording to global security the AIM9 is left in the slip stream until it locks up and is released, now on previous fighters they were mounted on external pylons.
In a scenario where the target is crossing left to right infront of the firing aircraft, the aircraft would queue the seeker head of the nearest left hand weapon to the target and also the other seekers so that as the target passes across the nose of the firing aircraft the right hand weapon seeker is looking in the right direction for the target.
My question is how does a aircraft with an internally carried heat seeker achieve this? Does it need to ? does both weapons deploy to cover this eventuality?
I was also thinking that if the AIM is hanging in the slip stream trying to aquire the target, wont this have a big impact on the LO charaterisitcs of the aircraft, now I know the LO is mainly for use in the BVR arena , but what impact if any do we think it will have in a close in fight?
Apoligies in advance if this has already been asked
By: djcross - 22nd July 2010 at 01:20
The Sidewinder family has two autonomous acquisition modes (wide field-of-view and narrow field-of view/boresight).
The missile seeker can also be steered by external command (as a feature to cut down target acquisition time). The seeker can be pointed by the pilot using a thumb switch on the stick, the seeker can be slaved to look where the radar is looking, or slaved to the JHMCS/HMS, or slaved to a target being tracked by EODAS (F-35).
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July 21, 2010 at 9:08 pm