An all-aspect
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 ...
can track a target no matter which way the target faces relative to the missile. In other words, an all-aspect missile can be launched against a target not only in a
tail-chase engagement, but also in a
head-on engagement, in a side-on engagement, from above, from below, etc.
This is opposed to older
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 ...
rear aspect missiles which were only able to track the hot engine exhaust of an aircraft if the aircraft's engine exhaust was pointing towards the missile seeker, and thus were only successfully used in tail-chase engagements.
Examples include the US
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 ...
(AIM-9L and later), the Russian
Vympel R-73
The R-73 (NATO reporting name AA-11 ''Archer'') is a short-range air-to-air missile developed by Vympel NPO that entered service in 1984.
Development
The R-73 was developed to replace the earlier R-60 (AA-8 'Aphid') weapon for short-range use b ...
and the Israeli
Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Python 5 air-air/ground-air missile.
[Asia-Pacific defence reporter, Volume 30, p.16, 2004]
References
Missile guidance
{{missile-stub