@pyronuke4768 I wonder if they were trying design a dogfighting missle instead of for straight and level high altitude bomber interception what they could have come up with. Was it the technology that was lacking or were they just designing them for the wrong use?
I remember an interview with Bruce Gordon where he said that the F-4 was given a different targeting computer than was designed to work properly with the aim 4. Said the f-106 had no problems hitting with the aim-4
The museum at Volk Field in Wisconsin has an example of both a heat seeking and radar guided AIM-4 in the building. I was surprised at how large they actually are. Then I started wondering how big a tip tank on an F-89H must've been as they each housed three Falcons (plus 21 FFARs in three groups of seven.) An F-89H with all six Falcons deployed is a pretty awesome sight!
Remember, this was the days of analog vacuum tube electronics. Anything but miniature ! The "computers", inside the aircraft, where specialized analog computers. A completely different architecture, foreign to those of what we think as digital computers. Digital computers, at the same time, were the size of a house !
I do have to say though that I completely disagree with your summation. It was an objectively bad platform. It shot down zero aircraft over its life. And as for innovative technologies that it inspired, what exactly would those be? Aim 7 Sparrow the a9 sidewinder and the a120 was a development on its own. And it's primarily an upgraded Sparrow.
@@michaelfrench3396 yes just Being a pioneer is not enough excuse to be bad. it served along the later ones,had expection of performance and it failed to do so.
Excellent, in-depth, and nerd-worthy history of the development of this missile system. I really think that the Vietnam experience was a humbling one for the USAF, and taught they the hard lesson that the base foundation of their air power had to be suited to the environment in which they would be fighting. Soon we would have the F-16, F-15 and F-18. Now that's a foundation you can build success upon.
This missile deserves a properly written technical treatise, going into detail as to exactly what the problems were and why it performed so horrifically. It seems to have had a good run in 1968. Olds firing so many without result while his wingman plugs a MiG with a single shot seems like the worst luck. And that 11% kill rate on trigger pull is the direct hit rate. Which other missile did as well?
Summary: Product development is difficult and takes way more time than estimated. Especially dealing with novel problems such as an air-to-air guided missile.
Given the success of proximity fuses in WWII and the problem of missile guidance, one wonders why proximity fuses weren't included in missile designs from the get-go.
It was largely because at the time they could only fit a 7.5 lbs warhead in the missile, and since the primary target was bombers they were doubtful near miss would do enough damage to bring one down; a direct hit would be far more devastating. This was later proven to be a rather accurate assessment as in testing it was found that a single Sidewinder with it's 20 lbs warhead could not reliably destroy a bomber using it's proximity fuse.
It's a curious problem when your seeker head is so sensitive it can track the lit end of a cigarette, but gets distracted by literally anything even slightly warm.
It's important to take into account that the cigarette is creating a signal equivalent to maybe a jet exhaust several miles away. The IR sensors were not sensitive enough to lock into anything warm, they locked onto the reflections of the sun in the water/treetops/clouds. The sun being the most powerful energy source in, well, the solar system. The thermal radiation from a warm body or even hot asphalt under the sun would not trigger the photosensitive elements. The wavelength is different. However sunlight features the wavelengths emitted by scorching hot objects.
I do love your channel, and I watch(ed) every single one of your videos! But I wonder if an on-screen conversion would be possible for those of us who don’t speak in freedom units. Is the non-native English portion of your audience large enough to warrant the extra effort that would require? If not, no biggy then I’ll just keep pressing pause to convert dimensions and weights to SI units 😊
Very interesting as always. Thank You. If they were envisioning a missile to bring down strategic bombers shortly after the end of WWII, & the Soviets didn't get the A-bomb until 1949, does this mean that they predicted the Soviets would get the A-bomb in a short while?
There is only so much engineers can replicate in the laboratory. There is a learning curve derived from experience in the real world so weapons that represent leading edge technology are naturally expected to be very questionable.
So 'Not a Pound' I'm guessing you have seen the '50 years of Sidewinder history' documentary made by the Technical Information Division NAVAIR Weapons Division, China Lake (2002) here on RU-vid? I remember watching it a while ago and especially the part about the 'fly off' test between the AIM-4 Falcon and the AIM-9. I'm paraphrasing, but.....The 'Falcon' team turned up with truck loads of calibration gear just to get the 'Falcon' ready to fly and fire off of the aircraft. The NAVAIR team turned up with a small group of guys, a single suit case of calibration gear and a Sidewinder. The 'Winder' team had their prototype AIM-9 missile ready to go quickly and had to sit around for hours waiting for the 'Falcon' team to get their missile to work properly. The Navy did not even hesitate to pick the 'winder' after seeing the comparison.
'range gate servo'? Now I'm immeasurably curious. I thought range gates were electronic, how did this work? I couldn't find any info when searching for this term, only getting a handful of text mentions for the term without any drawings or explanations. Have you found any further explanations about it?
As the missile gets closer, the different parts of the target start reflecting differing amounts of radar energy. There is also side lobe interaction that does weird stuff creating more radar reflections. They missile then starts wobbling around trying to chase the strongest reflection.
I suspect one factor may just be an issue with miniaturization; they just didn't have the technology in the 1950's to fit a decent guidance unit and antenna into the compact chassis of the missile. The Sparrow III (later AIM-7C) had a similar problem, to the point where the following model was increased to a diameter of eight inches just to make everything fit.
Your intro reminds me that the problem with the F4 is that at one end there's a really ugly tail assembly and at the other end there's a really ugly droop nose. That wouldn't be so bad were it not for the really ugly middle section that connects them ...
To me, the useage of the AIM-4 Falcon in Vietnam reads like someone trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, then throwing a hissy fit and blame it on the peg rather than admit they hadn't thought the whole thing through. I don't believe that the Falcon is this godawful peice of crap it's often made out to be, it was just the wrong tool for the wrong job, and unfortunately that's the only thing most people are told about it.
whats the timing of this video dude im walking home as i start thinking about the early air to air missiles and this video just pops up in my recommended when i get on the tram
Three main problems with the IR Falcon: only an 8ib warhead; had to make a direct hit to go off; once the seeker head was cooled you had 30 seconds to fire ir ...
It was in service at the same time as the aim 9. Yet we've got an aim 9x and I don't think there's a falcon x as far as I know. I think it got discontinued long before they got to even the middle of the alphabet
Robin Olds was also known to have thrown a big hissy fit after one cost him a chance at scoring a jet ace kill. Like, he wasn't a big fan already, but after that incident his attitude turned downright hostile.
