Talk:AIM-54 Phoenix

Active Guidance
"--- However visual target identification rules would disqualify the Phoenix which otherwise might seem an attractive way to quickly down errant terrorist-controlled air traffic, as with air combat patrol in peacetime."

I find this rather tasteless, but more importantly, extremely irrelevant.

Cost
Unit Cost: US$ 477,131 (in what year? What version) was asked by someone else. --/Mat 01:29, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * I recall the most often quotes figure for price at $1,000,000 for the AIM-54C. That's quite a difference in price.68.68.224.129 21:43, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
 * US Navy FactFile still lists $477,131. But is also calls the '54 a "weapons control system", rather than part of one. So it may not be definative.--J Clear 18:51, 10 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Check this resource for comparative pricing on AIM-54A (approx $400K) and AIM-54C (approx $1M): http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/phoenix.htm--HJ 15:12, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Out of service?
Do we know whether the Phoenix is still in service with Iran? Unless we know for sure it isn't, we should be wary of putting the description in the past tense. -- Cabalamat 12:07, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * It is a reasonable conclusion. They have never received any parts to maintain the missile, and all of their stock would be quite old or expended in training.  They almost certainly have created their own version, or bought Russia's AA-9, or made their own exact copies.

--14:49, 2 January 2007 (UTC)HJ--HJ 14:49, 2 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Unbelievable! Someone thinks that Iran might be able to put a Phoenix on a jet and go fire it with any accuracy??
 * Besides having NO spare parts for those missiles, the Iranian's don't have any trained technicians to take care of them and keep them in operating condition. You just don't get it that those missiles are COMPLICATED. Back before 1978, the Iranian Air Force hired experienced AMERICAN missile technicians with lots of experience in the Navy and with Huges Aircraft working on those missiles. Those men left jobs that didn't pay so well for jobs with the Iranian government that paid 10X as much, and with multiyear contracts if they wanted them.
 * The only airplane capable of flying any firing the AIM-54 was the F-14, a big and complicated fighter planes that took many hours of expert maintenence time for each hour flown - PLUS a lot of spare parts that the Iranian govenment had not received since 1978. Once again, the Iranian Air Force hired hundreds of experienced technicians who has left the Navy or who had worked for Grumman. All of those men vamoosed out of Iran during 1978 - 79, and nobody was dumb enough to go back there again. Just the eadar on an F-14 took a huge amount of expertise and time to keep it running.
 * THEREFORE Iran has F-14s that cannot be flown because they are not in technical shape for that, and the F-14s cannot carry the F-14s anymore, AND the missiles won't work, anyway.
 * If you ever investigate Navy missile ships & aircraft carriers; Army and Marine Corps surface-to-air missile units; any Air Force missile units (AMRAAM, Sidewinder, Maverick, HARM, ALCM, Minuteman, etc.) you will find that they are all loaded with highly-trained missile technicians with very fancy electronic gear to keep things operational. The same goes for Navy submarines with Tomahawk and Harpoo missiles -- they all take regular maintenence and testing to keep them operational and ready to fire. Dale101usa (talk) 03:54, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Iranian kills
Stop posting controversial, unverified information as if it were fact.


 * I think that instead the article should mention that "Supporters of these claims" (Tom Cooper and Farzad Bishop) of IRIAF Phoenix kills have FOIA documents from comtemporary USN reports confirming Tomcat engagements at long range as well as extensive testimony from both Iranian and also Iraqi pilots. AFAIK this information is "controversial" only in certain circles close to US military.


 * Their research is mostly based on stories of Iranian pilots. At best, a few kills may be confirmed by US intelligence reports and information from the very few Iraqi pilots interviewed.


 * I think the article is biased currently by implying that the best evidence to support the Iranian Phoenix kills is based on the poor performance of the IrAF. There is much better evidence available. --85.156.143.248 14:22, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

The part about a single missile destroying 4 fighter jets seems over the top and the overall numbers look bogus. If it was that good, the Americans would still be flying it... (the USAF never adopted it).

The Phoenix has a huge warhead and if it intercepted a flight of four in close formation, this isn't an impossibility, but it would be more believeable if Iraqi sources confirmed the claims. Perhaps a compromise from NPOV is "Iranian pilots claim>>>>". There hasn't been an air war yet that claims from both sides don't match up. As far as US removing it from service and USAF never adopting it...

As far as I have read, the Phoenix did shoot down two airplanes, which were flying close enough together to be within the Phoenix's blast zone. Four airplanes? Possible, but not likely to have happened. 04:11, 5 March 2007 (UTC)raryel

- One Quick comment - If I'm an Iraqi Flyer, and I see a Missle take out 2 of my buddies, I'll eject before the F14's get me. 2 caught in blast radius, the other two panic, and either eject or collide, or the engines flame out. Either way, one shot, 4 kills on radar. Think outside the box, it's unlikely but remotely possible, in multiple scenarios. Plus, to be fair, the anecdots of Iranian and Iraqi pilots should be given equal weight to the anecdotes of NATO pilots. And most books are based on interview, not dry mission logs and records. Really, the ethnocentrism is unbecoming- TSG 18 March 2007

On the subject of ethnocentrism, I wonder how an Austrian author came by the name of "Tom Cooper"? I can't find any evidence that "Mr Cooper" has any training as an historian or technician or ability to speak Persian. Can anybody vouch for his veracity as a reliable source other than from his own publications? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.97.83.42 (talk) 15:45, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

1) Phoenix was retired in advance of Tomcat retiring to save money. Naval Aviation is governing by an attack mentality that focuses on improving strike capability. Furthermore, restrictive ROE prevent Phoenix being employed at its best ranges and the arrival of more advanced AMRAAM allowed Phoenix to be retired. Ironically, Tomcats were primarily Precision Strike platforms in their last decade of service so AAMs of any type were a secondary interest at best. VF-41 flew without any AAMs over Kosovo in order to save gas.

2) The USAF and USN were forced into a Shotgun wedding in 1990 in terms of AAM development. prior to that, each service had its Research and Development labs favoring service unique solutions. That said, there was no way USAF would adopt the Phoenix nor the Tomcat though ADC looked at both. Interservice relations were very sour and USAF fought Sidewinder development for years preferring to concentrate on AIM-4 Falcon. The F-4D was delivered without any Sidewinder capability at all due to this attitude resulting in field commanders such as the famed Col Robin Olds to modify his Phantoms in the combat theatre of Southeast Asia to carry Sidewinders due to poor performance of the Falcon over North Vietnam. Interestingly, the US was always a decade ahead of the former Soviet Union in terms of AAM development. In 1975, squabbling between the USAF and USN over next generation SRM led to Congress denying each service "their" preferred solutions and a modest upgrade to the AIM-9 Sidewinder (AIM-9M) was pursued instead allowing the Soviet union to reap the benefit of the extensive AIMVAL testing and evaluation and field the next generation R-73/AA-11 Archer almost 2 decades before the USAF and USN were able to filed AIM-9X (although the original ASRAAM was supposed to fill that niche, but suffered developmental issues resulting in US to initiate AIM-9X).--HJ 14:50, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

YF-12
Mentioning a similar missile was developed for the YF-12 fighter version of the Blackbird seems misleading. From what I can read on the web, the YF-12 was tested with the AIM-47B. While you could claim they are similar in that both were based on the original AIM-47, it seems like a stretch, just designed to mention the YF-12 in this article. Is there a good reason to keep the YF-12 sentence in this article that I'm not aware of?--J Clear 17:02, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it's a good reference as AIM-47 technology was leveraged to create the AIM-54. See: What's interesting from historical perspective is that services were not getting along back then in terms of aircraft or missile development, but the prime contractors leveraged whatever they had developed for either service so technology did "cross-over" thanks to capitalism. Meanwhile, the USAF and USN were developing their own versions of Sparrow and Sidewinder after USAF was forced to introduce the Navy Phantom into its inventory.--HJ 15:17, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Photo
This is the first time I've seen a photo of the Phoenix without a set of longer triangular fins forward of those shown. Was that common? If not how about putting up one of the nuemorous DoD photos that show the typical configuration and put the present one further down with a discussion of the variant? Could it be one of the captive training models?--J Clear 17:02, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Ahh, now I see the wings come off for ground handling. I still think a photo with a fully assembled Phoenix, and with a cleaner nose, would be better for the lead picture.--J Clear 17:12, 10 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I dug past the NavyNews Photos, of which the wingless AIM-54 was the best of, and found the Defense Visual Information site. Picked out what I thought was some informative photos, cropped to change the focus from the F-14 to the AIM-54, uploaded and edited in.  We'll see if anyone is outraged.  And if someone thinks the first caption should have "6 Pack" in it....  I also thought about grabbing the complete original image to show the loading process.--J Clear 19:37, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Missile handling
Aviation Ordinanceman 2 & 3 Page 3-14, has a bit on Phoenix, not much. All of those books are public domain, that's how tpub got them, so I'd say any images on the page are also free / PD-USGov. Lots of missile handling information there too, including missile color codes. ADU-399 used to handle the missile. LAU-93 used to attach the missile to aircraft. TS-3479/AWM-23 go/no go missile test set for AIM-54. I don't know if any of this is worth adding, but here it is. --Dual Freq 16:06, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Ex missile tech
I was part of the Avionics and Fire control shop in VF-211 during the years '79 through '83. We had combined the rates of AT (Avionics Tech) and AQ (Fire Control Tech) into one shop called the IWT or Integrated Weapons Team. I'm fairly familiar with the capabilities and difficulties of maintaining Tomcats and I don't see where the Iranians could have kept the F-14 as anything but a gun bird past the early eighties.

Just so you nice folks know where I'm coming from.

Even with the full support of Grumman, NAESU, and the finest techs the Navy could churn out it was a constant battle to keep the the F-14 in top shape. Not because of any bad design flaws but because you have a sophisticated computer and radar system in a VERY dynamic aircraft. Go ahead, take your Pentium II, swing it over your head until you have it pulling anywhere from 3 to 6 G's and do it three or four times a day. See how long your system stays up. Then try it without any intermediate level tech support. (oh, hey! The ground techs found the fault in the radar....now what?)

Next consideration is the fact that due to strength and weight considerations the Tomcat was built using a lot of dissimular metals in contact with each other. Corrosion control was a constant and daily chore. An undermaintained F-14 or any high performance aircraft would become dangerous to fly in less than a year. And remember they are not getting anymore spare parts. They were constantly canniblizing more and more aircraft to keep fewer and fewer flying.

And as far the Iranians building exact duplicates of the Phoenix missile, Oh puh-leese, give me a break! This isn't an artillery shell or an oversized bottle rocket. This was the Phoenix goddamn Missile we're talking about. Nine different active rader modes, 20+ semi-active modes and 5 different IR modes, with the on-board capibility to decide which was best to use, just incase somebody got cute with the ECM. Good luck. Add to that the fact that the warhead was incredibly lethal and sophisticated. A 50 yard sure kill radius that tapered off from there, with the missile still capable of a greater than 50% kill chance even if it misses by a 150 yards. Thatsa whole big piece of sky that becomes un-inhabitable. BigDon 12:00, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

- Why couldn't Iran build an exact copy? They have a huge number of western educated engineers, expertise from Russia as well as indigeonous and numerous existing samples to use as templates. The AIM54 may have been state of the art for its time but I'd wager as a piece of electronic signal tracking hardware it is a level of magnitude less sophisticated than the cell phone in my pocket. (Nicodemus)


 * That did come off as a bit trollish, didn't it? Sorry. It was late when I typed that up. I was talking about then not now.

This isn't like when the Phoenicians ran that ship aground and allowed the Romans to capture it. A year later the seas were full of Roman vessels of Phoenician design. And I can tell you why. Ever hear of strategic materials and proprietal processes? An industrial base? Semiconductor factories? The Romans only needed wood to copy the the enemies design. Just the nose cone was beyond the Iranians capabilities. What do think that's made of? A rader transparent ceramic that can withstands going mach 6 plus the speed of the aircraft. Which itself was covered with a unique paint. You don't whip those out in a pottery shop.

That would be the least of their issues. The Iranians had just had a violent overthrow of goverment, anybody who was a "Western educated engineer" had seen this coming and ran like hell. Its called a brain drain. They weren't building their own weapons systems, they were buying them. Even before the revolution. Do you know how long it took the Russians to come up with something close? The Russians had a copy of the Aim-54 stats and designs long before the revolution and they couldn't match it in anything smaller than a bus until the ninties.

I do not for a moment doubt the Iranians courage and resolve, just their industrial capabilities. A point. If you followed the Iran/Iraq war which came later, the Iranians repeatedly used troops walking in a double row in front of their tanks treads to protect the tanks from mines. This shows incredible courage and resolve but it also shows they couldn't replace TANKS for goodness sakes. How about a metal detector or two? A simple flail tank maybe? Those don't even take a rocket scientist. See what I'm trying to get at here? BigDon 21:51, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

If we are talking Today, 2007 - Iran is building nuclear weapons, nuclear power, and home grown military aircraft. Today they have the industry to do it. In they 80's the would import talent and carefully use the limited inventory they have. Back in the 80's, probably hire consultants and engineers, hand build and maintain the meager reserves you have, as well as you can, import all the talent and tech you can find.. We know in the 80's Iran and Iraq didn't dog fight very much. Our RIO's were spectators the whole time. An F-14 turns on that big radar, everyone in that hemisphere knows, and probably runs away from it. After the first few engagements, Both Iran and Iraq didn't risk losing air craft to combat - it's in the smithsonian archives. The US Navy got a civilian engineer to develop a maintenece program that is put in to practice by enlisted mechanics to maintain airframes that get constant use. The Iranians with their oil ecomnomy reportedly had a team of well educated engineers working full time to maintain and reverse engineer the aircraft and missles, and probably used ten times the manhours the USN did to maintain the aircraft - not a problem, they had more air craft than qualified pilots, and rarely flew the aircraft, according the the Smithsonian anyway.

Should we believe that after 1982 Iran could field 79 fully armed and crewed F-14's performing up to USN Standards? No. But is it reasonable to assume they could keep a dozen F14's fully armed and able to fly with second rate AIM 54 knock off's based on stolen plans supplied by the Russians using imported technology and a handful of full time engineers? Iran always has used the F14's as a platform for launching Phoenix missles. They operated from airstrips, not catapults, and never got close enough to dog fight. The protected them as unreplaceable long range weapons, and didn't risk them, I'd bet the pilots were under orders no to exceed 3 G's to protect the airframe. They could never build 'em; but keep a hand full of 'em running well enough to launch a missle from altitude.

That's all the Iranian expatriates claim. That to this day a "Persian Cat" can take off, turn on that big radar, engage a target at long range with an AIM 54 knock off, presumably kill the target, and land. They never said they were engaging in "Top Gun" manuvers, catapulting and traping on a carrier everyday with perfectly maintained aircraft and nominal spec AIM54 Phoenix Missles.

Look at the problem like an Iranian general, you might find a compromise between black and white, you may find a Persian Cat colored in shades of gray. -TSG

Iranian Propaganda ?
86.133.138.163 (talk) 12:45, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

"In one instance four Iraqi fighters were shot down by a single Phoenix. Twice two Iraqi fighters were destroyed with a single missile."

This is an unsubstantiated claim, it sounds improbable, especially when not one, but three instances of multiple kills with one missile are documented. The extensive, verbose Iranian references sound to me like propaganda.

The Iranian section must be shortened, claims must be justified, and any propagandistic references removed. Otherwise, it should be moved to a separate article concerning the Iran-Iraq air war. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.189.252.111 (talk • contribs).

I would change a bit that phrase "Five AIM-54s were shot at AQL-34 target drones, two flying Mach 2 at 60,000 feet. Four missiles hit the targets. After the exercise the Soviets approached Iran and both sides reached agreement, that allowed the tensions to de-escalate, avoiding further conflicts between the two states.". It sounds like Soviets got scared by trainings. By the way - how did they got informed about results ;-) of those trainings?

MiG-25 unmatched flyings over Iran ceseased.

Apart this, the claim of MiG-25 downed in 1980 is totally inaccurate. Not before 1982 they started to be shot down by F-14, Mi-25 not were in service with Irak until that time.--Stefanomencarelli 15:00, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I think it is unfair to cast doubt on the Cooper and Bishop books and to use the accusation of propaganda. The books were written outside Iran, and are composed in large part from interviews with Iranian pilots who, despite fighting for their country 1980-88, were trained under the Shah and had little enthusiasm for the Islamic republic. Pilots' claims of kills often tend to be exaggerated - that has been true of all nationalities since the beginning of air warfare. But that is a separate matter. To dismiss all Iranian claims in the Iran-Iraq war just because they were made by Iranians is wooden-headed and stupid. The fact that they have been dismissed in that way by many western defence analysts since 1980 (though less so lately)does not make it any less stupid. Personally I find the Cooper and Bishop books convincing. 86.133.138.163 (talk) 12:23, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Disputed tag
Hi, I am not familiar with the subject matter in particular (I'm just a wandering admin). However, I see that a section of this article has been tagged as disputed for several months. Since no one appears to be working on it, I recommend either removing the tag, clarifying here at talk what exactly is still disputed, or simply deleting the section. --Elonka 10:36, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
 * There has been a lot of discussion in the past few years at Talk:F-14 Tomcat regarding the reliability of the Iranian combat history of the F-14 and the Phoenix as told by the Cooper book. That tag is part of that dispute, which I don't think has ever been resolved. The main source for the extraordinary claims made in the article is Iranian F-14 Tomcats in Combat authored by Tom Cooper and Farzad Bishop. One of the more outlandish claims made in the book is that 4 Iraqi aircraft were downed with a single missile. That's something that is basically unprecedented for any missile and has no verifiability other than, the aircrew saying we saw 4 targets on the radar and fired a missile then the targets disappeared. A more likely reason for that disappearance is the aircraft dove to evade detection and the tracks were lost. The book also claims 159 kills for the Iranian F-14, while Western sources estimate 4 kills against 4-5 losses and even the official Iranian estimate is only 35-45. (From Combat history of the F-14). So basically I think the dispute is that the section relies too heavily on a single source, which is based on unconfirmed pilot interviews. Combat history of the F-14 and F-14 Tomcat have also been involved in this dispute. --Dual Freq (talk) 22:48, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the explanation. :)  Since no one seems to be actively working on it, would you support simply deleting the section for now?  Or perhaps condense it to what is non-disputed, and then further details can be worked out later. --Elonka 23:28, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

The former Soviet aircraft design bureau
The former Soviet aircraft design bureau had a name that is abbreviated MiG, as in MiG-27. Is that too darn much to ask for you to type it right? The MiG-25 is doubtless too old and worn out to fly anymore. Valeri Belinco defected to one in Japan in 1974, and even then he told about how hard it was to maintain and how unworthy for combat it was. Read his book. Dale101usa (talk) 04:59, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

American combat experience
Two AIM-54 were fired over Iraq in January 1999 without any results. 195.248.189.182 (talk) 08:09, 1 August 2008 (UTC)


 * CNN is not known for its ability to get things right. Please find another confirmation source. Further, the only source mentioned is "One Pentagon Official" or something like this. The Russians are notorious for getting within our missile range (that they know but the U.S. Gov'mnt does not release), provoking a launch, and then dashing out of range. The MiG-25 is capable of Mach 3 speeds and is the perfect aircraft for this job. Given the Iraqis had ample experience with the AIM-54 and the F-14 years ago, it's hard to imagine they would intentionally fly their MiGs near enough to get shot down. It looks clear from the story that the missiles were fired to drive home our resolve, not to destroy the MiGs.


 * You also speculate that there were no results. Uh,the enemy planes turned tail and ran. That is a result. --Nukes4Tots (talk) 15:32, 1 August 2008 (UTC)


 * DoD News Briefing January 5, 1999: "two F-14s saw planes over the no-fly zone boundary within the no-fly zone and they fired two Phoenix missiles. In both cases, the Iraqi planes turned quickly and escaped. They quickly left the no-fly zone, and they escaped without being shot down."


 * Yeah, great job U.S. Navy, it took just two $500,000 missiles to rout the whole Iraqi Air Force. 195.248.189.182 (talk) 17:54, 3 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Oh, by the way.
 * "On January 5, 1999, two F-14Ds on patrol over Iraq encountered two Iraqi MiG-25s. The Tomcats fired two AIM-54 Phoenix missiles (one each), the first combat Phoenix launch by the U.S. Navy. The Iraqi jets turned back north and the missiles failed to hit their targets."
 * "On September 9, 1999, a VF-2 F-14 engaged an Iraqi MiG-23 with an AIM-54 Phoenix missile. Neither aircraft was damaged."
 * Guess what? Combat history of the F-14! 195.248.189.182 (talk) 17:57, 3 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The reference on the "combat experience" page states, "After the long-range Phoenix shots, the targeted MiGs turned around and egressed safely north." The Phoenix has a 100 nm plus range. At that range and Mach 3, the missile takes, say, three minutes to intercept. Were the Migs flying toward the F-14s at subsonic speed, they could easily turn about and escape even at subsonic speed, let alone a quick supersonic dash. In fact, the Phoenix (designed to shoot down slow bombers at long range) was not designed to accomplish this mission. At 50 miles, it might have had a chance. At 30 miles, it'd be a 50/50 proposition at best. The slant given in the text is unfair to the Phoenix. It ls like saying that a paring knife performs poorly for chopping down a tree. Of course it does, it wasn't designed to do that. --&#39;&#39;&#39;I am Asamuel&#39;&#39;&#39; (talk) 20:15, 3 August 2008 (UTC)


 * It is silly to claim that the AIM-54 was designed and built to shoot down "slow bombers" Much more pertinent was its ability to shoot down long-range supersonic antiship missiles that the Soviets were well-known to have. Let's actually say 600 knot to 1200 knot for the moment. Those missiles could be fired from bombers, patrol planes, Soviet Navy surface ships, and "watch out!" from Soviet submarines preceding and right up to the level of the "Oscar" class missile subs (MADE to attack aircraft-carrier task forces).
 * ALSO, the F-14 and the AIM-54 had the capability to try to take out lower, slower sea skimming missiles in what is called the "look-down, shoot-down" mode. Of course, those required multiple layers of defense to protect the aircraft carriers and cruisers: 1) shoot some down with the Tomcats, also using Sidewinders and their guns if they could. 2) Shoot down some more with the Standard missiles of the escorting cruisers, destroyers, and frigates. 3) Shoot down some "stragglers" or "leakers" with Sea Sparrow missiles from the carriers and the "Spruance"-class destroyers. 4) Then in the last-ditch of defense, all of those ships had two to four "Phalanx" antimissile guns, radar guided and computer controlled.
 * That is the whole idea of multiple layers of defense in depth, with each layer shooting down as many antiship missiles as it could: fighters with air-to-air missiles, long-range and medium-range Standard missiles; short range missiles from the escorts and the carriers themselves; the Phalanx CIWS.
 * Some sources claim that the Navy was planning on as many as 14 incoming antiship missiles attacking each aircraft carrier simultaneously, with more attacking the escort ships.
 * Then if any missile(s) leaked through all of those defenses, there would be plenty of work for the damage control teams to do on any ship that got hit by a missile. Very worrisome especially with the aircraft carriers, which needed to be able to receive and send off fighter planes as soon as possible. Dale101usa (talk) 04:59, 2 August 2012 (UTC)


 * okay, okay, let it be. But does anybody gonna add this incident to the American combat experience section? 195.248.189.182 (talk) 08:41, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Some facts and questions
One of the facts is the average speed. How the Phoeinx can cruise at over 24,000 m? It had perhaps a cruise engine? I know not, it has a rocket engine with a swift acceleration. Even if the missile it's fired at, let's say, 12,000 m, it takes, even while climbing at an average of mach 2+ (more than reasonable) about 18 seconds to reach 24,000 m, right? How much lastes it's engine? In a tipical AAM it lasts for 3-10 seconds, not more. So Phoenix reachs to the max altitude when its engine is already dead several kms below. So how hell it "cruise" at 24,000 m at Mach 4 - 5? It's impossibile. Its engine should be off after several seconds only, if not its engine it's not a fast one, as suggested. In other words, Phoenix it's not a cruise missile like Exocet (subsonic one). So this mechanics is not well known to me, not clear and apparently not accettable. Imagine if the F-14 is at 5,000 m, how its missile could reache 24,000 m and still have power to supercruise? How a AAM engine can burns for more than five to 10 seconds? Another thing: the average speed with a Sea Sparrow is 0,9 Mach, compared to +2 as maximum. So this tell us that even a bisonic missile is no faster than a subsonic Exocet. The Sea Sparrow ESSM is rated as Mach 4, with an average of Mach 2. This to say, that there is not a problem with max speed, but with average speed. This should works even with the mighty Phoenix. It's not a Star Trek weapon, after all.

What are the IR modes of Phoenix? It has no IR sensor. ECCM: You cannot think that with a 'ECCM' capability every ECM emitter is automatically targeted by the missile. If not, then every Sparrow - Aspide - AIM-54 etc. etc. could shot down every EA-6B or EF-111A. Do you think it's the case? Every missile has ECCM, but this is not enough to shot down a Prowler (that should be an 'easy prey'). Maybe using an HARM (with a broadband seeker) you have this capability, as happened in Gulf War II, when a B - 52 was damaged by an AGM - 88. But a SARH missile is not automatically an ARM missile (just look to the problems made by Shrike service).

As average speed: i read (M.Spick) that a Phoeinx launched against a supersonic target approaching at 1.5 Mach (as a Soviet bomber) was attacked by 204 km and destroyed at 134: impressive, but this gives an AVERAGE speed of Mach 2.8, not surely Mach 4.

Aircraft: It is true, there were no F - 14 in service with six Phoenix: all reports states that USN thoght them to be too heavy to operate on carriers. The standard was 2 or maybe 4 or them (with a considerable weight aboard, however) plus two AIM - 9 and two AIM - 7. If Tomcat had six AIM-54, atleast one or two should be fired before the landing and the fuel was compromised by the weight at take off.

Engagements: normally, the Phoenix FCS was activated at 166 km, not more. I read that launch (single) was possible at 116 km, multiple at 96. Not clear how in experimental tests were fired far longer shots, maybe a not operational fitting?

Iran: but even now there are F - 14 in flight with Phoenix! How so, in '00s yes, and '80s not in service? Hmm, maybe Cooper is not a crazy guy to state that they were fired (the stuff about four shot down with a missile seems to me a bit 'exaggerated' to be honest..). --Stefanomencarelli (talk) 22:04, 8 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I apologize, but I read neither a fact nor a quesiton. --Nukes4Tots (talk) 23:27, 8 March 2009 (UTC)


 * There are: range, functions, IR system (?), load, history. Maybe you should read more carefully. I'll remark 'em, so you'll have no excuses.--Stefanomencarelli (talk) 21:56, 20 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Ahhh, I understand. Sorry, my bad. Perfectly clear now: .  I concede nothing, I'm just going to bow out of this one. --Nukes4Tots (talk) 23:34, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Skepticism verification
Skepticism of the claims made by Iranian pilots in Cooper and Bishop's book needs verification. The Iranian combat experiences section needs citations for the statements like "...is not without its critics" and "Some Western sources...". I've updated the page to request citations where they are needed. XXVII (talk) 04:01, 5 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, good call - we all know how famous Iran is for telling the absoulute truth! How dare we question them? - BilCat (talk) 04:16, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Iranian Fighter's Pic
I suppose F-14 shown in the photo is actually a fighter belongs to Iranian Air Force which is in USA – not “Painted Like” one. Please refer to : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Air_Force_in_Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_war — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.182.146.136 (talk)


 * I'm not quite sure what you're referring to on the Iranian Air Force in Iran–Iraq war page. If you simply mean the fact that the photo is used on the page, that's not proof of anything. Ith images file page states : "An F-14A TOMCAT fighter aircraft from the U.S. Navy "Top Gun" Fighter Weapons School, San Diego, painted like an Iranian fighter for adversary training, makes a visit to the U.S. Air Force Fighter Weapons School. Location: NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, NEVADA (NV) UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (USA)". That's from the images file on a DOD site, and it'a much better source! - BilCat (talk) 07:45, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Text rearrangement and deletions
This is an explanation to some of the edits made on Nov 28, 2010:
 * 1. The second paragraph in the Intro made more sense in the History Section and the first sentence of the History section made more sense in the Intro. Both are now where they seem to make the most sense.
 * 2. I don't think the F-111 was a "slow-cruise" aircraft. The F-111 does ~460mph subsonic cruise, so that's not exactly slow.
 * 3. Added two sentences to History section concerning the VFX program beginning after the F-111B was cancelled.
 * 4. Removed the AIM-120 comparison because it was irrelevant. Both the AIM-54A and C versions had computers that came up with a collision course, both could get updates from the AWG-9/APG-71 mid course, and the AIM-54C also used digital electronics.
 * 5. Included additional details on its active homing and the missile variants.Agsftw (talk) 23:51, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Explanation to deletions made on February 23/2012:

Only the section on Iranian combat experience was edited. The first paragraph removed discussed the use of the missile by two Iranian pilots, "CAPTAIN ADELI AND MOHAMMAD MASDOUGH". The paragraph purported that they used one missile to shoot down three planes. However, no citation was provided. A web search of their names on google provided no hits of relevant material. Furthermore, the paragraph was written in very bad English. This information should only be posted if it can be verified. A source should be provided. It should also be written so that it can be easily understood (ie. no grammatical mistakes).

The second paragraph was removed for similar reasons. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.253.28.109 (talk) 06:00, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Unclear sentence
"A considerable counterpoint to the sabotage rumors is the 80th F-14, ordered by Iran but never delivered due to the revolution, indicating there was no impediment to simply seizing Tomcats and missiles." The point of this sentence is not at all clear to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.190.252.92 (talk) 08:09, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Iranian combat experiences with the AIM-54 Phoenix
I read different claims about Persian Cat (in monthly magazine), it said they receive 284 missile, fired 70 during war and scored 40 kills (out of 130 in total). --SojerPL (talk) 00:05, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

External links modified
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Article photo
Any chance anyone has a photo that isn’t so obviously a photo of the Estes model rocket? Maybe a USG public domain image? Part2343 (talk) 15:52, 1 March 2023 (UTC)


 * In my opinion this is a better image. It's the photo Commons uses. As you point out it's odd that the headline image is what appears to be a poorly-scaled drawing of a model, when there are photos of the actual thing. How do we know the drawing is accurate? I'll leave it for the time being because I'm not sure if it goes against house style for a missile / plane etc to be pointing to the left. -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 17:23, 18 December 2023 (UTC)
 * It's been changed a couple of times, both times by the person that made the image and apparently without comment or discussion. 2022 2017. I think the rendered 2017 version is preferrable to the 2022 one if I were to pick between them, but I think a real image is better still. I don't recall what the style guide says, if it says anything. --Dual Freq (talk) 23:31, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Wrong/Physically impossible Load out
the "Usage in comparison to other weapon systems" section mentions that a common load out would be 2 Phoenix 4 sparrow and 2 sidewinder missiles in the second paragraph.

This is (to my knowledge) physically impossible, due to the sparrow pylons being behind each other, and the two phoenixes would block the front one.

is this true or am i missing something here? TNTorge (talk) 18:19, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for pointing this out. The F-14 wikipedia article says 2/3/2 and agrees with a list of possible loadouts from a late 80s era book and this image: File:F-14A VF-33 DSCAP.JPEG. It appears to have been IP anon added as 2/3/2 but changed by another ip anon to 2/4/2. The "most common" claim will need a citation. --Dual Freq (talk) 19:11, 1 July 2023 (UTC)