The Fakour-90 () is an Iranian

air-to-air missile The newest and the oldest member of Rafael's Python family of AAM for comparisons, Python-5 (displayed lower-front) and Shafrir-1 (upper-back) An air-to-air missile (AAM) is a missile fired from an aircraft for the purpose of destroying a ...

based on the

AIM-54 Phoenix The AIM-54 Phoenix is an American radar-guided, long-range air-to-air missile (AAM), carried in clusters of up to six missiles on the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, its only operational launch platform. The Phoenix was the United States' only long-range ...

. It is solely deployed on Iran's F-14 Tomcats. While not confirmed for use in service, it has also been tested for usage on Iranian MiG-29s.

History

The missile was developed by the

Iranian Army The Islamic Republic of Iran Army Ground Forces ( fa, نیروی زمینی ارتش جمهوری اسلامی ایران, ''Niroo-ye Zamini-ye Artesh-e Jomhuri-ye Eslâmi-ye Iran''), acronymed NEZAJA ( fa, نزاجا, NEZEJA) are the ground forc ...

, the Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics, and the

Air Force An air force – in the broadest sense – is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an ...

. In October 2011, Iran announced that the missile had reached the stage of mass production. In April 2017, Fakour-90 long range air to air missile was officially unveiled during a visit by

Hassan Rouhani Hassan Rouhani ( fa, حسن روحانی, Standard Persian pronunciation: ; born Hassan Fereydoun ( fa, حسن فریدون, links=no); 12 November 1948) is an Iranian politician who served as the seventh president of Iran from 2013 to 2021. ...

from exhibition of latest achievements of defense ministry of Iran. Iran's state TV showed a video related to this exhibition including test firing a Fakour-90 missile by an F-14 Tomcat of IRIAF. On 23 July 2018, the Iranian military announced the Fakour radar-guided air-to-air missile was now being mass-produced. A ceremony attended by Iranian defence minister Amir Hatami was held to mark the announcement, during which at least six missiles were displayed as well as the front ends of another five. Hatami claimed the missile could be used with a variety of aircraft. The Iranian media reported that it has a range of 150 km, a speed of Mach 5, and a guidance system that enables it to hit a target independently of the launch aircraft's radar. Although most sources reported that the Fakour-90 is a copy of the AIM-54, some analysts suggested that the Fakour-90 was actually an air-launched version of the

MIM-23 Hawk The Raytheon MIM-23 HAWK ("Homing all the way killer") is an American medium-range surface-to-air missile. It was designed to be a much more mobile counterpart to the MIM-14 Nike Hercules, trading off range and altitude capability for a much sm ...

missile with control surfaces from the AIM-54. The Fakour-90 was also criticized for having less range than the original AIM-54 missiles.

References

External links

{{Commons category, Fakour-90 *https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/the-iranian-air-force-s-greatest-asset-lethal-fakour-90-air-to-air-missiles-put-into-mass-production Air-to-air missiles of Iran Military equipment introduced in the 2010s