Fox is a
brevity code used by
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
pilots to signal the simulated or actual release of an
air-to-air munition or other combat function.
Army aviation elements may use a different nomenclature, as the nature of
helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...
-fired weapons is almost always
air-to-surface
An air-to-surface missile (ASM) or air-to-ground missile (AGM) is a missile designed to be launched from military aircraft at targets on land or sea. There are also unpowered guided glide bombs not considered missiles. The two most common prop ...
. "Fox" is short for "foxtrot", the NATO
phonetic
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
designation for the letter "F", which is short for "fire". The radio call announcing that a weapon has been fired is intended to help avoid
friendly fire
In military terminology, friendly fire or fratricide is an attack by belligerent or neutral forces on friendly troops while attempting to attack enemy/hostile targets. Examples include misidentifying the target as hostile, cross-fire while en ...
, alerting other pilots to avoid maneuvering into the path of the munition.
There are three variations of the ''Fox'' brevity word in use, with a number added to the end of ''Fox'' to describe the primary type of
sensors the launched munition possesses (if applicable).
;Fox one: Indicates launch of a
semi-active radar-guided missile (such as the
AIM-7 Sparrow).
;Fox two: Indicates launch of an
infrared-guided
Infrared homing is a passive weapon guidance system which uses the infrared (IR) light emission from a target to track and follow it seamlessly. Missiles which use infrared seeking are often referred to as "heat-seekers" since infrared is rad ...
missile (such as the
AIM-9 Sidewinder
The AIM-9 Sidewinder (where "AIM" stands for "Air Intercept Missile") is a short-range air-to-air missile which entered service with the US Navy in 1956 and subsequently was adopted by the US Air Force in 1964. Since then the Sidewinder has prove ...
).
;Fox three: Indicates launch of an
active radar-guided missile (such as the
AIM-120 AMRAAM).
Before the introduction of Active radar homing missiles Fox three was the callsign for guns in an air to air role.
See also
*
Multiservice tactical brevity code
Multiservice tactical brevity codes are codes used by various military forces. The codes' procedure words, a type of voice procedure, are designed to convey complex information with a few words.
American/NATO codes
This is a list of American ...
References
External links
Multiservice Brevity Codesfrom the
Defense Technical Information Center
Brevity codes
Military aviation
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