I was confuswd cause you said “all ir missiles are beat by preflaring” which is true but its also irrelevant to my argemnt but yeah i agree 9m needs something to make it more interesting. Cause right now its definetly the worst of the bunch
The only arguable advantage is sim. Most pilots in RB will spot an Aim-9 launch
No, the aim-9m is the best side-aspect missile in the game, and has a great effective range.
Front aspect vs AB is currently 3km (should be 14.45km). its the top figure 8° off nose
11.5km is 5° off tail. So basically pure rear-aspect. (should be 28.71km, though of course you would never hit at either range)
Its really not, i would much rather take a MICA or an R-73, even the R-27ER…
Mica ARH , and no I think you need to learn how to use the aim-9M
And its not a uniwue advantage either aam3 is also smokeless but in top of that its longer ranged and more maneuverable isnt it?
Either way, aspects of that report have been implemented if not all of them and they just haven’t applied fixed.
Cause 11.5km is the front-aspect launch range in-game.
@Morvran
Against an afterburning target, lock range using 9Ms is 11.5km lower altitudes. The game prevented launch to 10km the last time I tested it, but it locks at 11.5 against an Su-7.
Should be 14/16 km and not in my experience i cant get locks that far
It depends. Under certain conditions its good. Under others its bad. Had one miss a Mig-29 today whilst it was in the LSZ in a side aspect shot and didnt even flare. I really should go watch the replay but CBA because it was a sim match.
But i’ve also AIm-9Ms track beautifully despite flares and hit a side aspect shot. But generally, I try to give them more of a rear-aspect shot if possible
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Same experience. I think its just seeker shutoff jank which is why i prefer fov gatewidth
My experience is that I rarely get more than a few KM no matter what
How is your lettering green?
I agree, but I think the problem with this conversation is that people don’t know how to use shut down seaker irccm
Well, the Su-7 is colder, and these ranges were tested at not 20,000 feet, but closer to 12,000 feet.
The last time I had someone to do high altitude IR missile testing was when I was testing Magic 2 range to destroy a target, which was 14km at the time. Oh, and 9L range was proven correct in the same test environment.
You can change the colour anytime, its the paint pallette in the bar. Just dont use red .
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The current Aim-9L ranges are correct. Thats kinda the issue.
Aim-9Ms =/= Aim-9L lock ranges. They match the RAFs modified AIm-9Ls which were “dechirped”
Flame's Explanation from the old forums
Over in the Tornado thread I’ve alluded a couple of times to a previously unknown British modification to the AIM-9L. Now that I’ve got a bit of time I thought I’d write a proper explanation for what it was.
As a bit of background: the AIM-9L seeker produces an acquisition audio tone whenever an IR source irradiates the detector cell. The pilot can then fire the missile in boresight mode (where the missile will just fire and try to lock onto whatever is in front of it), or press a button which will cause the seeker to attempt to the lock onto the the target and then uncage before launch (like we have in game), the latter being the normal mode of operation. In the case of the Tornado F.3 the button the pilot pressed to lock the seeker on was known as the “Target Acquisition Enable” (TAE) button.
The absolute minimum IR intensity the AIM-9L can detect is 15pw/cm -2 , but it needs about 35 pw/cm -2 in order to track a target reliably. It seems that when the AIM-9L was in development the Americans were concerned that the pilot couldn’t easily tell from the audio tone what the IR intensity of the target was; so the pilot may end up firing the missile without a strong enough return for it to track properly. They therefore implemented the “chirp” system into the missile (so called because it made the missile make a chirping sound when locked on). Basically (I’m simplifying a little) when the pilot attempted to lock the missile onto the target before launch the seeker would be repeatedly driven off-centre from the target, meaning that the target needed to have an IR intensity of about 70 cm/pw -2 before the missile could successfully lock on it, as the seeker wouldn’t be looking straight at the target. This would ensure that if the seeker had managed to obtained a lock it would easily be able to track the target after launch (because the IR intensity required for lock was much higher than that required for tracking).
The British decided that the chirp system “constitutes a very conservative confidence factor”, and that it wasn’t even needed because the pilot could use the sidewinder seeker symbol on the aircraft’s HUD to determine if the missile was tracking properly before launch. They therefore set about developing a way to remove the chirp system from the AIM-9L so that they could lock and fire it at greater range.
This is where the Tornado F.3 STF 113 de-chirping modification comes in (a proper British bodge job). They worked out that by modifying the wiring inside the LAU-7 missile launcher they could trick the AIM-9L seeker into thinking that the missile had already been launched (even though it was still attached to the aircraft) meaning the seeker could be made to lock-on to targets without the chirp system coming into play (as chirp was disabled as soon as the trigger was pulled). This modification to the launchers enabled the Tornado F.3 to lock onto targets with the AIM-9L at much greater ranges than other AIM-9L equipped aircraft could. According to the Tornado F.3 tactics manual the lock on range of the AIM-9L was essentially doubled under some conditions (which makes some sense as it now only needed half of the IR intensity it previously did in order to lock on).
I’m aware that this sounds like bit of a wild story, so here is the proof to back it up.
So 9Ls arent in question, although pretty much all British aircraft with 9Ls should have greater lock ranges. The Aim-9M is wrong. Flame used a doc that compared Dechriped Aim-9Ls and Aim-9Ms to get the lock ranges. The RAF found there was little difference between the 2 and he has a second doc for the Lock ranges of the Dechirped 9Ls
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Which would be useful in arb and great in sim as but aim9m and brit aim9ls have more than enough energy to hit targets hdn at <15km
Yeah. The smokeless motor is what really sells that advantage, I doubt the 9Ls would get many kills even in SB except against the most unawares person possible.
That being said, its just a nice little bit of “Seasoning” something to give these aircraft something a little bit unique
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EXACTLY man, thats whats cool about missiles. And thats the reason i hope we get more falcons besides the swiss mirage 3.