Aircraft/Missile Information
The first real use of the AIM-7 Sparrow occured in the Vietnam conflict, where it was heavily used by USAF and U.S. Navy F-4 Phantoms. The first engagement happened on June 7th 1965 when a U.S. Navy F-4B shot down 2 North Vietnamese MiG-17's. Although the missile was standard equipment on F-4's and used almost every day, the results were poor. Because of the absence of a reliable IFF system on the aircraft, the lang-range capacities of the AIM-7 could not be used, resulting in the missile being nothing more than a short-range radar guide missile. Kill-ratio of the first missiles never exceeded 10%.
Therefore a new missile was developed very quickly to overcome this shortfalls. This became the AIM-7E-2. With the introduction of the new missile overall effectiveness was improved and kill-ratios started to improve as well. With the ending of the conflict the total of confirmed kills stood at more than 50.
The last (up to now) operational use of the AIM-7 was in operation Desert Storm in 1991. The missile was used extensively by F-15 and F-16 aircraft. At the end of the war 22 Iraqi aircraft and 3 helicopters were downed by a AIM-7 missile.
The use of the missile will continue with different airforces around the world and will certainly stay in service aboard different naval vessels in the Sea Sparrow variant. However, the development of the missile has ceased in favor of the introduction of the AIM-120 AMRAAM missile. Although the AIM-7 was a splendid missile, it has one major disadvantage. Once it is fired, the aircraft must continue to illuminate the target untill impact, limiting that aircraft to straight and level flight.
For this reason the missile will slowly lose it's overall effectiveness and will be replaced completely with the AIM-120 AMRAAM or other medium to long range fire-and-forget missiles.
Specifications Primary Function Air-to-air guided missile Contractor Raytheon Co. Power Plant Hercules MK-58 solid-propellant rocket motor Thrust Classified Speed Classified Range approximately 30 nm Length 12 feet (3.64 meters) Diameter 8 inches (0.20 meters) Wingspan 3 feet, 4 inches (1 meter) Warhead Annular blast fragmentation warhead 88 lbs high explosive for AIM-9H Launch Weight Approximately 500 pounds (225 kilograms) Guidance System Raytheon semiactive on either continuous wave or pulsed Doppler radar energy Date Deployed 1976 Aircraft Platforms Navy: F-14 and F/A-18; Air Force: F-4, F-15, and F-16; Marine Corps: F-4 and F/A-18
