Forum: F-16 Armament & Stores

Durng the Gulf War two Canadian pilots flying CF-18 Hornets, Maj. David “DW” Kendall and Capt. Steve “Hillbilly” Hill were called upon to attack an Iraqi patrol boat, a TCN-45. Both aircraft strafed the speeding boat, with observed 20 mm cannon hits (I have a shell from this mission on my desk.) Several passes were made to attempt to lock up the vessel with Sidewinders without success. In a subsequent pass, Kendall received a full system lock on air-to-air mode and launched a Sparrow missile which impacted the water close to the boat.

Probably not the weapon of choice, but I guess you have to use what you have...

Mike

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If you can't kill'em at least scare the sh*t out of them.

-7's are extinct from the inventory. To my knowledge no(USAF) unit flies -7's anymore. The only time I see an AIM-7 is when i go to the school house at Sheppard AFB, TX. LOL!

I remember when I joined my unit, there was a static display of one of our ADF block 15s that had 120's on 1 and 9, sidewinders on 2 and 8, and Sparrows on 3 and 7. I joined in 1999 and we converted to block 30s that next year. I think the sparrows were phased out some time before, but they still practiced loading it.

We still had C models flying sparrows in OIF.

akruse21 wrote:

We still had C models flying sparrows in OIF.

You sure they were Sparrows or AGM-88's(HARM), you know they look about the same, but the -7 is much fatter than the HARM. Dude, I don't think there was any -7's in theater during OIF and b4 the build-up of OIF. PSAB was where they stored missiles for the whole theater, Al-Jaber, Kuwait is where the heavies were.

I think scorp is correct. The only Viper that I'm aware of that ever carried Sparrow operationally (and it wasn't for very long) was the ADF....which was Block 15. Sparrows have front canards with pointed tips while HARM has the tips clipped. Both missiles are about the same size, tho.

Purplehaze wrote:

It's got a big enough warhead so use it as a HARM!

Was'nt the shrike a modified AIM-7 nor maybe some kind of a missle that used the AIM-7 guidance? Question

Elite 1K Joined: May 26, 2005 - 08:39 PM Posts: 1496

Yep, the ND ANG Vipers are Sparrow capable. I think it also required a radar mod to be able to CW illuminate a target for the missile.

The USAF are still using Sparrows though, this year on static at a UK airshow was a 48th FW F-15E with a mixed A2A load out. 2x Aim-9 + 2x AIM-120 on wing pylons... 4x AIM-7 on the fueslage stations.

Andy

The AIM-7 is never used for a combat loadout anymore because the AIM-120 is superior in every way, shape, and form. The AIM-120 is lighter, more effective, and longer ranged. The Sparrow is easily evaded by aircraft and leaves the firer vulnerable to counterattack, and if it misses, you're in alot of danger. The Sparrow is effective in the HARM and Sea Sparrow versions though. The Sparrow just isn't good on a fighter.

Well, the sparrow has amuch larger warhead then the Slamerm so it should do better on tough but easy to hit targets.
Althugh the discussion is largely academic, after all not many nations operate large 4 or more engine bombers anymore.

LWF wrote:

The AIM-7 is never used for a combat loadout anymore because the AIM-120 is superior in every way, shape, and form. The AIM-120 is lighter, more effective, and longer ranged. The Sparrow is easily evaded by aircraft and leaves the firer vulnerable to counterattack, and if it misses, you're in alot of danger. The Sparrow is effective in the HARM and Sea Sparrow versions though. The Sparrow just isn't good on a fighter.

HARM is not a version of Sparrow. Not remotely.

Forum: F-16 Armament & Stores

AIM-7 Sparrow