Questionable AIM-54

[Nervenklaus]

Here is an interesting clip

about the F-14 BVR made by a real RIO of F-14 - Ward Carroll. He mentioned that Fox3 usually fired at 40NMs from the target and the hit will be scored about 28NMs. This number 28 should varies depends on the relative speed and the planes altitude and etc. But in DCS I can only get the impact at about 20-21NMs when fire at 40NMs. There is no way to even get it close to 28. My only guessing is that the speed of AIM-54 in this game is too slow or Ward's memory does not service very well.

Edited April 30 by Nervenklaus

[Dragon1-1]

Are both you cranking after launch? Also, what's the bandit doing? Carroll could be referring to some scenario that they practiced, and this would not necessarily mean the aircraft are flying straight ahead at each other. The standard procedure after launching AIM-54s is to crank, considerably reducing closure. Speeds and altitudes also matter, the Phoenix works best up high, and if you're supersonic when launching it, you'll give it a boost.

Honestly, I'm not sure if talking about ranges like that even makes sense. He might have had some canned scenario to work with (try Speed and Angels campaign, could even be the one Reflected reproduced there), but in combat, BVR timelines will vary based on a number of factors. You could possibly make your first launch at 100NM in some situations, though it'd likely be more of a posturing shot than something you'll expect to hit.

[captain_dalan]

Way too many variables. You need specific launch conditions for both aircraft AND their timelines to even begin using it as a performance benchmark. 

[Nervenklaus]

For sure I believe what Ward introduced here is a normal practice. For example both F-14 and target are at about 500knt TAS and 30000ft, I think this a decent typical situation.  No matter what you do, including crank, you can never get 28NM, the best I can get is 22NM. 

Edited May 2 by Nervenklaus

[cesarferrolho]

On 4/30/2025 at 11:50 PM, Nervenklaus said:

Here is an interesting clip

about the F-14 BVR made by a real RIO of F-14 - Ward Carroll. He mentioned that Fox3 usually fired at 40NMs from the target and the hit will be scored about 28NMs. This number 28 should varies depends on the relative speed and the planes altitude and etc. But in DCS I can only get the impact at about 20-21NMs when fire at 40NMs. There is no way to even get it close to 28. My only guessing is that the speed of AIM-54 in this game is too slow or Ward's memory does not service very well.

There is a whole thread in this forum about the performance of the Aim-54, a very detailed discussion with back and fourth between users and Heatblur themselves with graphs, etc... I'm sure you can find it.

IMHO, it will always be difficult for military systems to be 100% accurate in a computer simulation available to the general public

[WarthogOsl]

23 hours ago, Nervenklaus said:

For sure I believe what Ward introduced here is a normal practice. For example both F-14 and target are at about 500knt TAS and 30000ft, I think this a decent typical situation.  No matter what you do, including crank, you can never get 28NM, the best I can get is 22NM. 

Here's me last night, 26 miles away when the first missile impacts.  I wasn't even trying that hard, fwiw (cranking, but not quite to gimbal limits).  Launch was at 53 miles from 40k.

 

Edited May 3 by WarthogOsl

[Nervenklaus]

24 minutes ago, WarthogOsl said:

Here's me last night, 26 miles away when the first missile impacts.  I wasn't even trying that hard, fwiw (cranking, but not quite to gimbal limits).  Launch was at 53 miles from 40k.

 

Thank for the response, but it was said that launch at 40miles instead.

[Dragon1-1]

One more thing, we should remember that he likely never fired a real Phoenix at a real, high speed target. Training in those days was done using timelines and calling out shots, which would be evaluated based on a number of parameters. As they didn't have computers to help them (they were expensive and took up a whole room back then), it had to be simplified somehow. Without more information, it's hard to say whether this is a factor here, but depending on the assumptions taken, it could lead to actual flight time being off.