>>27729911>>27729923>>27730346The AIM-54 was fired in anger by the USN exactly 3 times, with zero hits. One was a very long range shot against a MiG-25, which the MiG turn and ran from. The missile was not fired within the "no escape zone", so the target turned, ran , and escaped.
One of the shots fired failed because the rocket motor did not ignite. I have heard ancedotal evidence that stated a ground crewmen did not prepare the missile properly during the pre flight arming, iirc some pin somewhere was left in place. This could be incorrect information, I am not sure. But at this point the missiles were getting very old, and at this point in time the tomcat ( and its phoenix) was being given less funding than it should have been, thanks to the hornet mafia and Dick Cheny.
That being said, the missile was tested, extensively at that, and found to be very capable, even against fighter sized targets. It was rated to engage targets pulling 7-8 g, which is a lot for for the time period. Sure, a flanker or fulcrum could make one miss, but the soviets did not field that many durnign the tomcats heyday. Not to mention that an F-14 could target an enemy in TWS (track while scan) mode, fire, and the enemy would have no indication that a missile was inbound. Hell, many soviet aircraft of this time had such crappy radar warning receivers that they would be lucky to know a tomcat was there, let alone the bearing range or altitude. In TWS mode, detecting a tomcat was even more difficult. The reality is that it is VERY hard to defeat a missile shot, when the first time you know its is inbound is when the missile's onboard radar goes active at 5-10nm, and its traveling mach 4 coming down from 80,000 ft.
So, was its reason for being designed to kill cruise missile carrying backfires and blinders? Yes. But they knew it may need to kill soviet fighters and attack aircraft as well. Hence, why the tested them against 7-8g target drones.
