Monday, May 10, 2010

Falcon Missile Info Wanted

One of my ongoing research projects is a history of the Falcon missile. For those of you who don't know, the Falcon was the USAF's first guided AAM. It evolved into a whole mess of variants, culminating in the monster AIM-47, the projected armament for the F-12B Mach 3 interceptor. I've collected a ton of information, schematics, photos, etc, over the past few years, but I still have some holes left to fill in the story. Here's what I'm looking for:

-What variants of the AIM-4/26 did Greece, Iran, Taiwan, and Turkey receive? Were they ever used in combat? What were the results?
-What were the details of the Swedish modification program, which is supposed to have brought the license-built AIM-4C to AIM-4D standard?
-Were there any differences between the Swedish license built missiles and those exported to Switzerland?

If anyone can point me in the right direction, it'd be appreciated. I'm particularly interested to hear what foreign pilots, particularly those from the Greek, Japanese, Swedish, Swiss, and Turkish AFs, thought of the missile. If you know of anybody that can help, have them drop me a line! Same goes if you know of anybody who may have worked on the missile at some point, particularly the GAR-9/AIM-47.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

try acig.org for Greece/Turkey use. AFAIK not used in combat but was present in a clash in which a Turkish F-102 was brought down by Greek F-5s over the Aegean.

Ran Barton said...

I have always found the AIM-4/GAR-9/AIM-47/(and in some ways AIM-54, too) evolution to be very interesting, including the associated platforms (from the F-12 to the F6D Missileer). I hope that you publish what you have gathered at some point; I would love to read it.

Ran Barton said...

There is some interesting pro-Navy commentary on Falcon development in Westrum's book Sidewinder. Good anecdotes about the flyoffs at White Sands, IIRC.

Sean O'Connor said...

Yeah...gonna have to pass on Westrum's book for a while, a new copy is around $200 on Amazon! The end result of all of this mess will be published here and in a few other places as a downloadable PDF. If we're really lucky, I might even have it done by the end of the year, but don't hold your breath. This has been a long-term project and I seem to keep finding either holes in my research, or new info to assimilate.

Ran Barton said...

I found my copy in a county library here. I don't know where you are, but maybe you can get lucky. It's an entertaining read.

Anonymous said...

Visit ACIG.org's forum.
Tom Cooper mentioned IIAF AIM-4's a few times.

nico said...

can't wait to read what you've got! aim-4 has always gotten little coverage and usually it's negative....