The

Hughes Hughes may refer to: People * Hughes (surname) * Hughes (given name) Places Antarctica * Hughes Range (Antarctica), Ross Dependency * Mount Hughes, Oates Land * Hughes Basin, Oates Land * Hughes Bay, Graham Land * Hughes Bluff, Victoria La ...

AIM-47 Falcon, originally GAR-9, was a very long-range high-performance

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 ...

that shared the basic design of the earlier AIM-4 Falcon. It was developed in 1958 along with the new Hughes AN/ASG-18

radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, Marine radar, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor v ...

fire-control system intended to arm the Mach 3 XF-108 Rapier

interceptor aircraft An interceptor aircraft, or simply interceptor, is a type of fighter aircraft designed specifically for the defensive interception role against an attacking enemy aircraft, particularly bombers and reconnaissance aircraft. Aircraft that are ...

and, after its cancellation, the YF-12A. It was never used operationally, but was a direct predecessor of the AIM-54 Phoenix.

Development

Development for XF-108

In the early 1950s, the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Si ...

developed requirements for a high speed, high performance interceptor aircraft, originally called the LRI-X. In 1957, Hughes won the contract to supply the weapons system for this aircraft. This system consisted of the GAR-X missile and the YX-1 radar and fire control system. The original missile design had a range of 15 to 25 miles (25 to 40 km), and could be equipped with a conventional warhead or a 0.25 kiloton version of the W42 nuclear warhead. When the North American XF-108 Rapier was announced as the winner of the LRI-X contest in April 1958, the Hughes entries were redesignated GAR-9 and AN/ASG-18 on the same day. The F-108 was cancelled in September 1959, but the Air Force decided to continue development of the missile system with both warheads.Sean O'Connor
Hughes GAR-9/AIM-47 Falcon
Directory of U.S. Military Rockets and Missiles, 2004 During its development, the capabilities of the new missile grew tremendously. Growing much larger, the missile's range was extended to 100 miles (160 km), using the Aerojet-General XM59 solid-fuel motor. Since this would be beyond the range of effective

semi-active radar homing Semi-active radar homing (SARH) is a common type of missile guidance system, perhaps the most common type for longer-range air-to-air and surface-to-air missile systems. The name refers to the fact that the missile itself is only a passive de ...

, a new active-radar terminal seeker was added to the missile. This seeker was a powerful system of its own, with the resolution to be able to lock onto a target at 63 nm (116 km). Using an active seeker eliminated the inherent long-range inaccuracy of semi-active homing, allowing the missile to be launched at any range where it could see the target. Some consideration was given to the addition of a passive

infrared homing 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 ...

seeker to improve terminal performance but that would have required the missile to grow by and two inches in diameter, making it too large for the F-108's weapon bay. The W42 nuclear version was dropped in 1958 in favor of a high-explosive design. Problems with the motor during development led to the brief consideration of using a storable

liquid-fuel rocket A liquid-propellant rocket or liquid rocket utilizes a rocket engine that uses liquid propellants. Liquids are desirable because they have a reasonably high density and high specific impulse (''I''sp). This allows the volume of the propellant ta ...

design, but was replaced instead by the Lockheed XSR13-LP-1

solid rocket A solid-propellant rocket or solid rocket is a rocket with a rocket engine that uses solid propellants ( fuel/ oxidizer). The earliest rockets were solid-fuel rockets powered by gunpowder; they were used in warfare by the Arabs, Chinese, ...

. This lowered the top speed from Mach 6 to Mach 4. In this form, the GAR-9 started ground firings in August 1961. For air-launch testing at supersonic speeds the

Republic XF-103 The Republic XF-103 was an American project to develop a powerful missile-armed interceptor aircraft capable of destroying Soviet bombers while flying at speeds as high as Mach 3. Despite a prolonged development, it never progressed past the mo ...

had originally been proposed as a test platform, but this aircraft was cancelled before reaching the prototype stage. Instead,

B-58 Hustler The Convair B-58 Hustler, designed and produced by American aircraft manufacturer Convair, was the first operational bomber capable of Mach 2 flight. The B-58 was developed during the 1950s for the United States Air Force (USAF) Strategic Air ...

s/n 55-665 was modified to house the AN/ASG-18 radar in a large protruding

radome A radome (a portmanteau of radar and dome) is a structural, weatherproof enclosure that protects a radar antenna. The radome is constructed of material transparent to radio waves. Radomes protect the antenna from weather and conceal antenna e ...

that gave it the nickname "Snoopy", and in-flight launches started in May 1962.

Development for YF-12

In 1960 Lockheed started development of the Lockheed YF-12 interceptor, as a lower-cost replacement for the F-108. The GAR-9/ASG-18 were moved to this project. The F-12 would have featured four flip-open internal weapons bays on the chines behind the cockpit, one of these filled with electronics. The F-12B bays were too small for the GAR-9, so the GAR-9B was developed with flip-out fins to reduce its diameter. It weighed . Test firings of the GAR-9A from the prototype F-12As resulted in six kills from seven launches, the lone miss due to a missile power failure (there were several non-guiding test launches as well). The missile was renamed AIM-47 in late 1962 as part of the transition to common naming for aerospace vehicles across the U.S. Department of Defense in 1962. The last launch was from a YF-12 flying at Mach 3.2 and an altitude of 74,400 feet (22,677 m) at a QB-47 target drone 500 feet (152 m) off the ground.B. Rich, ''Skunk Works'' (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1994), p. 236 In 1966, the F-12 project was cancelled just as the F-108 had been. Another project which expressed an interest in the design was the

XB-70 Valkyrie The North American Aviation XB-70 Valkyrie was the prototype version of the planned B-70 nuclear-armed, deep-penetration supersonic strategic bomber for the United States Air Force Strategic Air Command. Designed in the late 1950s by North Ame ...

, a bomber which could have carried the AIM-47 for self-defense. This aircraft was also cancelled after Soviet deployment of effective high-altitude surface-to-air missiles made high-altitude attacks on the Soviet Union impractical. Hughes had built 80 pre-production AIM-47 missiles.

Legacy

The AIM-47 was used as a base for the AIM-54 Phoenix (originally the AAM-N-11), intended for the

General Dynamics F-111B A general officer is an officer of high rank in the armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry. In some usages the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colonel."general, adj. and n.". OED On ...

. This project was also canceled in 1968, but the weapon system finally found a home on the

F-14 Tomcat The Grumman F-14 Tomcat is an American carrier-capable supersonic aircraft, supersonic, twinjet, twin-engine, two-seat, twin-tail, variable-sweep wing fighter aircraft. The Tomcat was developed for the United States Navy's Naval Fighter Experi ...

, entering service in the early 1970s. In 1966, the basic airframe was adapted with the seeker from the

AGM-45 Shrike AGM-45 Shrike is an American anti-radiation missile designed to home in on hostile anti-aircraft radar. The Shrike was developed by the Naval Weapons Center at China Lake in 1963 by mating a seeker head to the rocket body of an AIM-7 Sparrow. ...

and the warhead from the Mk. 81 bomb to create the high-speed

AGM-76 Falcon The AGM-76 Falcon was an air-to-surface anti-radiation missile developed by the United States Air Force during the Vietnam War. Intended as a conversion using off-the-shelf parts, it did not go into operational service. Overview During 1966, the U ...

anti-radar missile, although this did not see service.Andreas Parsch
Hughes AGM-76 Falcon
Directory of U.S. Military Rockets and Missiles, 2004

References

External links