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1982 Tomcat weapons load...Colors of missiles


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Hello all

 

Building an F-14A circa 1982, and am wondering what colors the missiles would be. I'm doing a full load-out of AIM-54A's, AIM-9L's, and AIM-7E's. I know the Mike model came out in 1982, but I'm assuming that the Echo was still used in the fleet during that year? Anyways, if you guys can help me figure out if the missiles were white or gray during that period, I'd appreciate it. 

 

Thank's

 

Aaron 

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I'm pretty sure they'd all be white in '82, That's the year I got out and I never saw a gray missile while I was in. The Lima 'winders were still pretty new then so maybe G's or H's would also be appropriate, but I guess the F-14s would have been the first to get Limas. I only saw them once during a missile shoot. We shot the first ones ever tried off of an F-4N. That was probably spring of '82.

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9 hours ago, Viper_944FW said:

The attached pic is from our (vf-213) Indian Ocean cruise (April-Nov 81), please note the color of the missiles.

Vf213_004ab.jpg

 

That's an AIM-7F, and he was looking for an AIM-7E-4. AFAIK, they stayed white.

 

Regards,

Murph

 

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10 hours ago, achterkirch said:

AIM-9LF-14A_Tomcat_VF-102_in_flight_1982.JPEGanother sidewinder and sparrow 

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:F-14A_Tomcat_VF-32_in_flight_in_1982.jpg

F-14A_VF-1_from_below_with_AIM-7_and_AIM

AIM-54. Scroll down till you see the Phoenix shot in 82. 

http://www.seaforces.org/usnair/VF/Fighter-Squadron-11.htm

 

 

Kind of hard to tell...White body, but a gray nose on the Phoenix? 

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11 minutes ago, strikeeagle801 said:

Kind of hard to tell...White body, but a gray nose on the Phoenix? 

 

The radome was ceramic material (same as the AIM-7F, AIM-7M, and AIM-120) that was off-white when new, but as it picked up dirt and grime it turned gray.  The same thing happens to the radome on the F-16.  Navy missiles tended to pick up more dirt than Air Force versions, because they were handled. loaded, and flown more frequently than Air Force missiles.

 

aim-54a-phoenix-guided-missile-underneat

 

Regards,

Murph

Edited by Murph
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Just now, Murph said:

 

The radome was ceramic material (same as the AIM-7F and AIM-7M) that was off-white when new, but as it picked up dirt and grime it turned gray.  The same thing happens to the radome on the F-16.  Navy missiles tended to pick up more dirt than Air Force versions, because they were handled. loaded, and flown more frequently than Air Force missiles.

 

aim-54a-phoenix-guided-missile-underneat

 

Regards,

Murph

Thank's Murph. Same thing with the Sparrow then? All white, no gray or tan? 

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Just now, strikeeagle801 said:

Thank's Murph. Same thing with the Sparrow then? All white, no gray or tan? 

 

AFAIK, the AIM-7E never made the transition to gray,  I saw live AIM-7Es as late as 1988, and they were inevitably still white.  They did have the black "L" on the forward wings since they were "dogfight" Sparrows; those were introduced during the Vietnam War.  The radome on the AIM-7E was a fiberglass material, but it still picked up dirt the same way as the later variants, so I would go with off-white or a slightly darker gray, depending how grungy you want it to look.

 

Regards,

Murph

 

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3 minutes ago, strikeeagle801 said:

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:F-14A_Tomcat_VF-32_in_flight_in_1982.jpg

 

I'm doing a VF-32 jet from this deployment. It looks like a white AIM-9L, and a gray Sparrow...what version, I can't tell. 

 

Aaron 

 

It's an AIM-7F.  The F model introduced the unpainted wings and fins, moved the warhead forward of the wings (the yellow stripe moved too in consequence), and added the fuze windows on the forward section.  The AIM-7F only had two fuse windows, where the AIM-7M had four which were aligned with the forward wings.

 

Regards,

Murph

Edited by Murph
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Ghost grey missiles began showing up around the same time as the low-vis initiative of the early 1980s went into effect (82-83 on average). By that same token, a buddy of mine deployed with VF-154 in 1998 and said they still occasionally saw white phoenix missiles (he remembers seeing this because he thought the missile looked very out of place). Just food for thought.

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13 hours ago, strikeeagle801 said:

Thank's Murph. Same thing with the Sparrow then? All white, no gray or tan? 

The radomes were/are ceramic and brand new they were almost white. It's very similar to the material ceramic knife sharpeners are made out of. As a matter of fact, a couple of times when missiles  were dropped on the flight deck and radomes broken, the bigger shards quickly went into pockets to be used for sharpening knives.

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mix it up and paint them white, then some white and gray, some faded some dirty and some clean(ish)....you won't be wrong however you decide to go cause if you look at enough photos you will see so many combinations that your head will spin...

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