The AIM-68 is an American air-to-air missile design. It never entered production.

Overview

The Big Q began life in 1963 as a replacement for the

AIR-2 Genie The Douglas AIR-2 Genie (previous designation MB-1) was an unguided air-to-air rocket with a 1.5 kt W25 nuclear warhead. It was deployed by the United States Air Force (USAF 1957–1985) and Canada (Royal Canadian Air Force 1965–68, Air Co ...

rocket. The Genie was unguided, and had generally poor flight performance characteristics. The Big Q was to be a much more capable weapon, intended to engage

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

bombers. Big Q is actually a nickname only. The right to name the missile was given to the initial designer, 1st Lt John McMasters, who chose the name of the

Aztec The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl ...

serpent god Quetzalcoatl. This led to a tremendous number of pronunciation and spelling errors until virtually everybody associated with the project referred to it as Big Q for short. In 1965 the ZAIM-68A designation was assigned to the missile. A 20% model was successfully tested in a wind tunnel during that year and in June a contract was awarded to National Tapered Wing Engineering Company to produce 20 fuselage sections for prototype missiles. The AIM-68 was designed with a dual-thrust solid-propellant rocket and was capable of reaching speeds of Mach 4 over its range. The prototypes were fitted with infrared guidance systems from GAR-2A/B (AIM-4C/D) Falcon missiles; the rocket motor from the

AGM-12 Bullpup The AGM-12 Bullpup is a short-range air-to-ground missile developed by Martin Marietta for the US Navy. It is among the earliest precision guided air-to-ground weapons and the first to be mass produced. It first saw operational use in 1959 on th ...

was used for propulsion. The warhead was a W30 0.5 kiloton nuclear warhead, smaller than the 1.5 kiloton model used on the Genie. The guidance system allowed the missile to be used against maneuvering targets, including single bombers, rather than whole formations as was the case for the Genie. The reduced yield and greater range also made using the weapon a far less hazardous prospect for the launching aircraft. Potential users of the Big Q included the F-101B,

F-102 The Convair F-102 Delta Dagger was an American interceptor aircraft designed and manufactured by Convair. Built as part of the backbone of the United States Air Force's air defenses in the late 1950s, it entered service in 1956. Its main purpos ...

F-106 The Convair F-106 Delta Dart was the primary all-weather interceptor aircraft of the United States Air Force from the 1960s through to the 1980s. Designed as the so-called "Ultimate Interceptor", it proved to be the last specialist interceptor i ...

F-4C The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II is an American tandem two-seat, twin-engine, all-weather, long-range supersonic jet interceptor and fighter-bomber originally developed by McDonnell Aircraft for the United States Navy.Swanborough and ...

. The size of the missile was dictated by these choices, as some of the aircraft carried weapons in an internal bay. As part of the effort to keep the size down, the missile was fitted with fold-out sections on the main wings. There have been attempts to reuse the -68 designation; notably the U.S. Navy wanted their new Standard Block V missile to be known as the RIM-68A. This failed (the designation RIM-156A was used instead). In 1995, the Navy tried to change it again—apparently wanting an operational missile to have a continuous run with the RIM-66 Standard MR and

RIM-67 Standard ER The RIM-67 Standard ER (SM-1ER/SM-2ER) is an extended range surface-to-air missile (SAM) and anti-ship missile originally developed for the United States Navy (USN). The RIM-67 was developed as a replacement for the RIM-8 Talos, a 1950s system d ...

designations. The request was refused again.

Specifications

*''Length'' : *''Wingspan'' : (with the wings extended) *''Diameter'' : *''Weight'' : *''Speed'' : Mach 4 *''Range'' : *''Propulsion'' : Solid-fuel rocket *''Warhead'' : W30 Mod 4 Y2 nuclear (0.5 kt)

External links

Air Force Weapons Lab AIM-68 Big Q - Designation Systems
{{US missiles Nuclear anti-aircraft weapons AIM-068 Abandoned military rocket and missile projects of the United States