Airforces

For many years, the

Sidewinder series set the

benchmark for short-range

air-to-air missile (AAM)

performance. It was arguably

only with the entry into service

of the then Soviet Vympel R-73

(AA-11 Archer) in 1983 that the

US and NATO alliance’s advantage in

infrared guided weaponry was negated.

The Archer offered very high manoeuvrability

and extended range, combined with a simple

but effective helmet-mounted sight. Further

developments in the West had restored this edge

over Russian systems by the first decade of this

century, though technological developments

elsewhere now pose a considerable question

as to continuing Western ‘superiority’ in

the within visual range (WVR) domain.

Chinese advances

While the Chengdu J-20 was the biggest

draw at Airshow China 2016, the debut of

the Luoyang PL-10E, an imaging infrared

‘dogfight’ missile, was just as significant. The

missile probably

only entered service with

the People’s Liberation Army Air

Force (PLAAF) in 2016, but Beijing is already

offering the weapon for sale: the ‘E’ stands

for export. Nor had the military apparently

seen fit to give the missile an export-only

designation, unlike the radar-guided PL-12,

rebadged as the SD-10 for potential foreign

customers. China has generally given export-

only designations to its weapon systems.

China is the latest in what remains of only

a handful of nations to develop and field an

View to a kill

eventy years ago, William McLean
sketched out the design of a
missile seeker based on infrared
radiation. It marked the genesis of the most
‘successful’ air-to-air weapon ever designed,
the Sidewinder: a missile with variant names
that almost span the alphabet and that
today remains in widespread service. By
the turn of this century more than 200,000
of all versions had been produced.
Test-firings of the weapon began in 1953
and the AIM-9B model entered service
with the US Navy in 1956. At that time the
US Air Force was wedded to radar-guided
systems intended to provide an all-weather
capability and it was several years before it
changed its position. The shift was promoted
in part by the difficulty of developing the
more complex semi-active radar-guided
weapons, coupled with poor reliability and,
all too often, disappointing performance.
Nearly half a century after the AIM-9B
entered the US Navy inventory, the latest
variant of the Sidewinder family, the AIM-9X,
reached initial operational capability in 2003.

S

62 // MAY 2018 #362 http://www.airforcesmonthly.com

Short-range air-to-air missiles