How The Air Force Fires Live Missiles To Make Sure Pilots And Weapons Function In Actual Combat
Live-fire training is about giving aircrews vital experience outside of the heat of combat and making sure the weapons they would use actually work.
By Jamie Hunter May 18, 2021
The War Zone
021015-F-7709A-006
83rd Fighter Weapons Squadron—Copyright,
“Fox 3!” a pilot exclaims as a radar-guided missile streaks off the wing of a fighter jet. In seconds the weapon is traveling at supersonic speed, hurtling to deliver a lethal blow to its intended target. However, this isn’t actual real-world combat, this is training for a fledgling aviator gaining vital experience, or testing a new piece of equipment or software, ensuring an air-to-air missile will work exactly as planned not during a canned training event, but in the heat of combat.
The world of advanced air-to-air combat is a notoriously complex affair. The missile technology that underpins it, from short-range heat-seeking AIM-9 Sidewinders to long-range, radar-guided, AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAMs), represents the tip of the aerial combat spear. Harnessing that edge is a critical part of maintaining air supremacy, and it’s something the U.S. military takes very seriously.
USAF/SSgt John McRell
An F-15E of the 40th Flight Test Squadron fires an AIM-120 AMRAAM.
Therefore, the end-to-end testing of the entire system, from pulling a weapon from its transportation container, loading it on the aircraft, flying it, engaging a target, and ultimately firing the weapon, making sure it is guiding to the target, and ultimately destroying its victim, is important in many ways. It proves the system works, plus it gives new aviators experience of the rush of using live weapons in a far better situation than the heat of combat.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/40614/fox-3-inside-the-air-forces-live-air-to-air-missile-shoots
