Tag Archives: AIM-9X

How many Sidewinders Does $1.1B Buy?

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U.S. Marines with Marine All Weather Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA(AW)) 533 transport an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, Sept. 28, 2022. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Gabriel Durand)

First fired successfully in September 1953 (!) and bagged its first confirmed aerial kills in 1958, the AIM-9 Sidewinder is still very much in demand and on front-line service in its 70s.

Of course, the current fifth-generation infra-red AIM-9X tactical weapon system family, which debuted in 2004 and has delivered well over 10,000 examples, is not your grandfather’s Sidewinder.

Unlike previous AIM-9 models, the AIM-9X can even be used against ground targets and has Lock-On-After-Launch and Data Link capabilities. Little wonder that it is used by 29 countries.

With that in mind, it should be no surprise that the DOD just announced a $1.1B contract for right at 2,000 war-shot and around 200 training missiles for both U.S. and overseas customers. This points to a cost of about $500K per round, which is a bargain compared to a $1.3 million longer-range AIM-132 AMRAAM.

As Sidewinders have proved useful against incoming Iranian and Houthi missiles in the Middle East in the past couple of years, a lot of these new purchases are likely to backfill for expended rounds.

Plus, the Ukrainians have shown them to be useful when fired in a novel fashion from their Magura 7 SAM-equipped air defense drone boats, which have claimed two shootdowns of Russian tactical aircraft in recent weeks over the Black Sea, ala Cold War M48 Chaparral style.  

Anyway, the announcement:

Raytheon Co., Tucson, Arizona, is awarded a $1,100,806,209 modification (P00004) to a previously awarded fixed-price incentive (firm-target) contract (N0001924C0032). This modification exercises options for the production and delivery of AIM-9X production Lot 25 requirements as follows: 1,756 AIM-9X-4 Block II All Up Round Tactical Missiles (492 for the Navy, 456 for the Air Force, and 808 for Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customers); 242 AIM-9X-5 Block II+ All Up Round Tactical Missiles for FMS customers; 187 Captive Air Training Missiles (CATM)-9X-4 (40 for the Navy, 62 for the Air Force, and 85 for FMS customers); 13 Special Air Training Missiles (NATM) (five for the Air Force and eight for FMS customers); six Data Air Test Missiles for FMS customers; 30 Multi-Purpose Training Missile for FMS customers; eight Block I Tactical Sectionalization Kits for the Air Force; seven Block I CATM Sectionalization Kits for the Air Force; 33 Block II Tactical Sectionalization Kit (21 for the Navy, eight for the Air Force, and four for FMS customers); 34 Block II CATM Sectionalization Kits (24 for the Navy, six for the Air Force, and four for FMS customers); 31 Block II Tactical Maintenance Kits (30 for the Navy and one for FMS customers); 28 Block II CATM Maintenance Kits (27 for the Air Force and one for FMS customers), as well as various associated spares, containers, and support equipment. Work will be performed in Tucson, Arizona (36.14%); North Logan, Utah (9.96%); Niles, Illinois (7.83%); Keyser, West Virginia (7.65%); Hillsboro, Oregon (4.71%); Midland, Ontario, Canada (3.17%); Heilbronn, Germany (2.58%); Goleta, California (2.5%); Simsbury, Connecticut (2.49%); Anaheim, California   (2.39%); Minneapolis, Minnesota (2.10%); Murrieta, California (2.10%); Valencia, California (1.68%); San Diego, California (1.57%); Kalispell, Montana (1.56%); St. Albans, Vermont (1.21%); Anniston, Alabama (1.15%); San Jose, California (1.12%); Cincinnati, Ohio (1.03%); and various other locations within the continental U.S. (7.06%), and is expected to be complete by October 2028. Fiscal 2025 weapons procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $490,708,962; fiscal 2025 missile procurement funds in the amount of $183,651,109; fiscal 2025 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $2,082,840; fiscal 2025 research, development, test and evaluation (Air Force) funds in the amount of $952,404; fiscal 2025 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount of $664,351; fiscal 2024 missile procurement (Air Force) funds in the amount of $55,470,485; fiscal 2024 weapons procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $2,961,405; fiscal 2024 research, development, test and evaluation (Air Force) funds in the amount of $952,404; fiscal 2023 missile procurement (Air Force) funds in the amount of $8,768,269; fiscal 2023 weapons procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $4,448; and FMS customer funds in the amount of $597,227,867, will be obligated at the time of award, of which $19,623,826 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The contract action was not competed. Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.

 

Float Around and Find Out

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Unless you have been in a cave in the woods the past week, the whole country was abuzz over the maneuverable Chinese “commercial weather” balloon that crossed from Montana to South Carolina.

Sure, it was essentially just rebooted 1950s strategic recon tech of the same sort that we used over the Soviet Union and the Middle East (see the 516 balloons launched during Operation Genetrix, for instance). Still, it made many folks doubt American Continental air defense and/or the political will to use it, for better or worse, which may have been the whole purpose if you think of it as a PsyOp.

Then again, maybe it was a dress rehearsal for a balloon-carried EMP device (2014 Congressional testimony: “[E]ven a relatively low-altitude EMP attack, where the nuclear warhead is detonated at an
altitude of 30 kilometers, will generate a damaging EMP field over a vast area, covering a region equivalent to New England, all of New York, and half of Pennsylvania.”).

But no matter what, the mechanics of the shootdown should be interesting to any student of military history.

The nuts and bolts, as detailed by the DOD:

An F-22 Raptor fighter from the 1st Fighter Wing at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, fired one AIM-9X Sidewinder missile at the balloon. The F-22 fired the Sidewinder at the balloon from an altitude of 58,000 feet. The balloon at the time was between 60,000 and 65,000 feet.

F-15 Eagles flying from Barnes Air National Guard Base, Massachusetts, supported the F-22, as did tankers from multiple states including Oregon, Montana, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Canadian forces also helped track the overflight of the balloon.

The balloon fell approximately six miles off the coast in about 47 feet of water. No one was hurt.

The Navy has deployed the destroyer USS Oscar Austin, the cruiser USS Philippine Sea and the USS Carter Hall, an amphibious landing ship in support of the effort.

The shootdown area was perfectly planned for recovery, with the Coast Guard able to close down the impact area so the Navy could switch to salvage. Inside U.S. territorial waters, it can be cordoned off effectively while the shallow depth allows even scuba-diver level salvage ops. Naturally, a drop from 60,000 feet onto the surface (and the likelihood that its electronics were probably already remotely destroyed via a WP grenade or something of the sort once it beamed its last messages back to Bejing) means the intel gleaned will likely be of little value other than as a trophy, but still.

A window on the shootdown showed that the pair of F-22s that splashed the balloon– the type’s first documented air-to-air “kill” since taking to the air in 1997– were call-signed FRANK01 and FRANK02.

Why was this important?

The general theory is that this was a salute to 2nd Lt Frank Luke Jr., the famed Great War ace who zapped four German airplanes and 14 balloons in 1918 over the Western Front, making him the all-time American balloon killer of the conflict.

The more things change…

2nd Lt. Frank Luke Jr. with his biplane in the fields near Rattentout Farm, France, on Sept. 19, 1918.

Had a Navy or USMC F-18 or F-35 splashed the Chinese balloon, the flight callsign should have been DAVE01/02 as the first U.S. Naval air ace during World War I, LT David Sinton Ingalls, USNRF, was credited with four enemy aircraft and an observation balloon while flying with Royal Air Force Squadron 213.

“Shooting Down a Kite Balloon” Painting, Oil on Wood; By Bruce Ungerland; 1971; Framed Dimensions 50H X 43W NHHC NH 77664-KN