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Comment by cstross | Hacker News Reader

It's worth noting that despite all the valid points about the costs of the F-14, the F-14 was the cheaper alternate platform for the AIM-54 and AN/AWG-9 radar; they were originally developed (as the AIM-47 and AN/ASG 18) for the Lockheed YF-12A, a Mach 3 bomber-interceptor variant of the A-12, single-seat predecessor to the SR-71:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_YF-12

(The YF-12A program got as far as a 96 plane order for the USAF before it was cancelled in favour of the cheaper F-106X project, which also failed.)

Anyway, before condemning the F-14 for being expensive to operate, I invite you to consider the likely costs of fielding a fleet of hundreds of nearly-hypersonic interceptors based on the same hardware as the SR-71 ...

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I was curious how much the Phoenix missile itself cost. Some sources state a development cost of $167M, and a unit cost of ~$500k (with ~5000 built), adding up to about $2.5B, some of which was recouped by sales to Iran.

It's impossible to say how much money was spent on aircraft capable of firing the missile, since they were also designed to do other things, and raw production/maintenance costs are hard to track down anyway. The Tomcat alone seems to have cost tens of billions to build and operate.

Ultimately, "the AIM-54 has been used in 62 air-to-air strikes, all by Iran during the eight-year Iran–Iraq War" (Wikipedia).

Whether or not this outcome was "expensive" is up to the American taxpayer, I guess.

The quote from Wikipedia appears to be wrong. The US has also used the missile in combat. FTA:

“In January of 1999, two F-14s each fired one Phoenix missile at two Iraqi MiG-25s, only to have both miss. Later that same year, another F-14 fired a Phoenix at a MiG-23, only to miss once again. No F-14 ever shot down an enemy aircraft with the missile it was designed to carry.”

The Wikipedia quote above is from the initial introductory section. Later, Wikipedia[0] says:

> U.S. combat experience

> On January 5, 1999, a pair of US F-14s fired two Phoenixes at Iraqi MiG-25s southeast of Baghdad. Both AIM-54s' rocket motors failed and neither missile hit its target.

> On September 9, 1999, another US F-14 launched an AIM-54 at an Iraqi MiG-23 that was heading south into the no-fly zone from Al Taqaddum air base west of Baghdad. The missile missed, eventually going into the ground after the Iraqi fighter reversed course and fled north.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-54_Phoenix#U.S._combat_e...

Part of the problem with "super expensive" weapons is they rarely get used in actual situations and so not much is known about their performance in theater.

Also, the AIM-54 was designed to down bombers, which even in TU-22M form have very different maneuverability than fighters.

True, and the article discussed this. However, two of the three AIM-54 missiles launched by the US in combat failed to even ignite; the characteristics of the target aircraft were irrelevant.

From the article I got the idea that the AIM was probably short for "And... I Missed."

https://designation-systems.net/usmilav/missiles.html

Theres’s an entire system for how the designations work.

I've never understood why the AIM-54 wasn't replatformed after the decision was made to retire the F-14.

I guess procurement politics?

But maybe also because the terminal active radar guidance was no longer capable of burning through expected Russian ECM? And in a balancing of "substantially update and redesign" vs "invest elsewhere", long-range fleet missiles weren't a priority in the wake of the USSR's collapse and Russia's economic struggles.

> I've never understood why the AIM-54 wasn't replatformed after the decision was made to retire the F-14.

It was a huge fucking missile. Only the F-14 was able to physically carry it and it's unique pylon. If adapted to other airframes they might have only been able to carry a single missile. Even the F-14 could only practically carry four of them. If it launched with the max of six and didn't fire any it would have to jettison two before attempting a landing.

The AIM-120 in contrast could be carried by a number of US and allied fighters, had active radar homing (fire and forget), and BVR capability. The latest versions can even match the range of the AIM-54.

The AIM-54 was designed to hit incoming high altitude bombers coming for a carrier battle group outside of the range they could launch nuclear ALCMs. With that job largely obviated by the collapse of the USSR and end of the Cold War there was never much need to keep the system in service.

The danger to carrier battle groups today are lower altitude cruise missiles, opposing fighter/attack aircraft, and UAVs. A missile that really only works well against high altitude targets isn't all that useful.

Yeah, wikipedia says the Phoenix weighed about 450kg, three times as much as an AMRAAM. And given that the latest versions, like you mention, have a range very close to the Phoenix, and the AMRAAM has been continually developed (presumably including advances in sensors, electronics and software), whereas Phoenix apparently wasn't developed since the 1986 AIM-54C. So except for a very slight advantage in nominal range, arguably the modern AMRAAM is vastly superior in every respect.

MBDA Meteor has the dimensions of Amraam but is air breathing and has very high range and speed. For one example, even the small Gripen has already fired it.

As I understand it, the AIM-54 being too expensive for its utility and its function being less prioritized was part of the calculus of retiring the F-14, which happened after the AIM-54 was retired.

The F-12 cancelation is also why SR-71 producing ended: part of the cancelation order from the SecDef was to destroy the tooling for the YF-12. Which is the same as the tooling for the SR-71.

Though: this is actually beside the point because the Navy wasn't ever going to operate the F-12. The predecessors of the F-14 were the F-111B (rejected because it wasn't actually going to be carrier qualifiable) and the F6D (rejected because it was useless once the missiles were launched)

Why destroy the tooling?

I assume it's to ensure that a previous program can't be revived and thus threaten the follow-on program.

In my view, if the follow on program is truly compelling, it should live or die based on its own performance, but I guess that's not how the game is played.

I think this was done with the Saturn V, as well.

Thoughts?

It's really for two primary reasons:

1. Storing tooling, especially huge aircraft-sized tooling, has real costs associated with it. There's the physical space it occupies as well as the costs associated with keeping it from degrading. Guess who industry charges for all of this?

2. Concerns about security. If an adversary manages to surreptitiously capture images or other data on the tooling, perhaps they can get closer to developing an equivalent capability.

It's certainly possible the idea is also at play that by destroying the tooling, you prevent advocates of the current system from jamming up the process of acquiring new and improved systems. It would be great if the development and acquisition of new systems was always merit-based and rigorous, but it's often not. I'm not saying this is the case, but it could have been a fear of guerrilla advocacy from Lockheed or its advocates in the Government stymieing progress. For all its awesomeness, the A-12 family was heinously expensive to operate. If you had pressure from congresspersons or ill-informed generals to acquire more of these because of their incredible capability, but that meant you couldn't afford to improve your capabilities in other areas, you might not appreciate that pressure.

Good points - thank you.

First off at the end of a production run you are faced with a decision.

Do you preserve the production line or destroy it?

The customer paid for it so it is their property usually. They make the call.

I would bet that the tooling was not destroyed but transferred to other lines.

The jigs and fixtures used would be destroyed because it was top secret job.

Safer to destroy than preserve.

Good points - thank you.

In this specific case, it was because McNamara believed that SAMs were too good for the aircraft to survive, and to keep it from being resurrected, he ordered it destroyed. There was no direct follow on program, just spy satellites.

Funny sidetone: the largest customer of the data and imaginary the SR-71 produced was the Navy ;-)

The F-14 was the alternative to the aborted F-111B. This was originally intended to carry the Phoenix and AN/AWG-9. Although it would have been cool, the YF-12 would have difficulty with a catapult launch.

Amusingly, the AIM-47 page says that the YF-12A was itself a lower-cost replacement for the XF-108 program.

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