Should the US Military Ressurect an Old Concept?

F-14 Fires a Phoenix Missile

What the US should do is instead of depending on stealth to win the BVR fight is to go back to the concept behind the F-14 and the Phoenix missile. That is to have a not stealthy capable dogfighter for if things do go bad you can engage in a within visual range fight but also to have a long range air to air missile that can accurately hit the enemy while the plane firing the missile is still out of radar detection range of the enemy fighter.

It is this that has me convinced that in their time the F-14/Phoenix Missile combo were the best in class for BVR combat. Hell even for today the phoenix has longer range than the meteor by 90 Kilometers, it out ranges the AMRAAM by 120 Kilometers, it out ranges the Vympel R-77M by 30 Kilometers and it has a longer range than the PL-12 by 90 Kilometers. It also travels at a much quicker speed than any of those missiles by nearly 1200mph.



By the way the specs on the AIM-54 Phoenix is it has a range of 190 Kilometers and flys at a speed of Mach 5 or 3308 mph.

Also let us not forget that the AIM-120 and meteor the main BVR missiles fro the west are classified as medium range missiles. Simply based off of that using them as the main BVR weapons is unwise.