What the hell is going on with the sedjeel??? They are decent…when they work but are completely unreliable. Every other game or so they’ll just dive straight down to the ground or even pitch up to god knows where. They are supposed to have the same seeker as the aim-7f/m which are known to have a similar issue but those are still are pretty reliable overall.
With the sedjeel every time you launch one it’s a coin flip whether or not it will f*** you over (like in the second clip). Too bad because like I said when they work they feel great but you’re probably still better off using the R-27R still, at least they are predictable.
What does the weight of the missile have to do with them pitching straight down to the ground right after launch?? Or up for that matter. Also the Fakours are even heavier than the sedjeel and they don’t have any issue…
These are just 2 clips among dozens. There’s an entire post dedicated to this issue.
Here’s another clip when launching at a 50km target around the same altitude. It immediately dives towards the ground. There’s no correlation between this behavior and the distance they are launched. It happens regardless.
If the target is too far away the missile will loose lock and start drifting as it has no INS, and if the target starts turning away it will also lose lock and start drifting, and so on.
Its very wacky behavior, but it is consistent, and also usefull as you can relock targets assuming your lock crosses the drifting search cone.
I have hit people who ducked behind mountains abd re-emerged using that.
After quite a bit of digging, seems like that last picture might be for the Basic Hawk.
The I-Hawk also used a monopulse seeker with a planar array antenna and solid state electronics that looked not much different from the Iranian Hawk (Shalamcheh) seeker:
ADA017242 Missile Manufacturing Technology Conference Held at Hilton Head Island, South Carolina on 22-26 September 1975. Panel Presentations: Guidance. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA017242.pdf
