Rear aspect missiles

[The King of Spades]

If I radar lock a target with certain rear aspect missiles like the Aim-9j or H series, do they gain frontal aspect? Or is it just reading the afterburner or something?

[Frog]

They don't gain frontal aspect, rear aspect missiles look for heat signatures and if it can't see the engine of the aircraft it can't lock.

[Emperors Champion Dragos]

I think you can slave the aim9j to radar, I dunno how it functions tho like if its basically a SARH missile or still an IR missile, but I think you can.

[Kay]

Your radar has nothing to do with the ability of an IR seeking missile to lock a target, that's entirely the missile's seeker.

It'll let you more easily point it at your target if it's radar slaveable, but not lock if the missile wouldn't be able to do that normally

Rear aspect IR seeking missiles can, depending on the seeker, lock on to the afterburner of a jet from angles outside of the rear aspect.

[Jaes]

The most important aspect of radar slaving is enabling the missile to fire at gimbal angles it wouldn't normally be able to. There can be situations where you can enable an AIM-9G/H to obtain a front aspect lock if the seeker gets at the target at the correct angle for it to detect the Afterburner of the potential target, but the missiles are technically not front aspect capable on their own.

[Ihatetrainyards]

Originally posted by Carry:

They don't gain frontal aspect, rear aspect missiles look for heat signatures and if it can't see the engine of the aircraft it can't lock.

Yet they continue tracking perfectly when a target turns around 180 degrees to face you.

[Flavalicious]

Sometimes you'll get a front lock on a jet with an afterburner going on. I've definitely had frontal locks with AIM G's before, its not common but it happens.

Be it bug or feature, only the snail knows. lol

[whatdoesthisbuttondo?]

Originally posted by Emperors Champion Dragos:

I think you can slave the aim9j to radar, I dunno how it functions tho like if its basically a SARH missile or still an IR missile, but I think you can.

What that means is slaving the missile seeker head to the radar while the missile is still on the rail.

Basically you get a radar lock on your target, then you allow the seeker head to turn towards your radar track. The seeker head is initially caged, meaning it is looking straight ahead.

This also works with HMD and high off-bore capable AIM-9X, the seeker head of those can move and tilt quite a bit, so if you have a target outside your radar tracking zone, you can just look at it with HMD and have seeker head follow.

The missile never gains any radar homing capability, neither guided by the launching platform nor self-homing.