November 8, 1997 (by Lieven Dewitte) -
Two ASRAAMs were fired from an F-16 at the US Air Force's Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. The first was the firing of the final `dispersion round' and was used to gather vibration and seeker dome heating data.
The second firing, designated F4, was against a QF-4 Phantom target drone. The objective was to check the flight profile and tracking performance, with the warhead of the missile being replaced by telemetry equipment.
ASRAAM uses a highly developed imaging infrared (IIR) seeker made by Hughes Aircraft and is designed to cut through extreme levels of clutter andcounter measures activity.
