AAM-N-10 Eagle
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The AAM-N-10 Eagle was a long-range
air-to-air missile An air-to-air missile (AAM) is a missile fired from an aircraft for the purpose of destroying another aircraft (including unmanned aircraft such as cruise missiles). AAMs are typically powered by one or more rocket motors, usually solid-fuel roc ...
developed by the
Bendix Corporation Bendix Corporation is an American manufacturing and engineering company founded in 1924 and subsidiary of Knorr-Bremse since 2002. During various times in its existence, Bendix made automotive brake shoes and systems, vacuum tubes, aircraft ...
for use by the
United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...
. Intended for carriage by the
Douglas F6D Missileer The Douglas F6D Missileer was a proposed carrier-based fleet defense fighter designed by Douglas Aircraft Company in response to a 1959 United States Navy requirement. It was designed to be able to loiter for extended periods at a relatively lo ...
fleet defense fighter An interceptor aircraft, or simply interceptor, is a type of fighter aircraft designed specifically for the defensive interception role against an attacking enemy aircraft, particularly bombers and reconnaissance aircraft. Aircraft that are cap ...
, the Eagle program was cancelled before testing could begin, but the lessons learned were used in the development of the
AIM-54 Phoenix The AIM-54 Phoenix is an American active radar-guided, beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile (AAM), carried in clusters of up to six missiles on the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, its only operational launch platform. The AIM-54 Phoenix was the United S ...
missile.


Design and development

Development of the AAM-N-10 began in 1957 with the definition of the
fleet defense fighter An interceptor aircraft, or simply interceptor, is a type of fighter aircraft designed specifically for the defensive interception role against an attacking enemy aircraft, particularly bombers and reconnaissance aircraft. Aircraft that are cap ...
: a subsonic, long-endurance
interceptor aircraft An interceptor aircraft, or simply interceptor, is a type of fighter aircraft designed specifically for the defensive interception role against an attacking enemy aircraft, particularly bombers and reconnaissance aircraft. Aircraft that are c ...
carrying a powerful radar set and very-long-range missiles, capable of shooting down enemy bombers at the greatest possible distance from the
aircraft carrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and hangar facilities for supporting, arming, deploying and recovering carrier-based aircraft, shipborne aircraft. Typically it is the ...
s they were attempting to attack. In 1958,
Douglas Aircraft The Douglas Aircraft Company was an American aerospace and defense company based in Southern California. Founded in 1921 by Donald Wills Douglas Sr., it merged with McDonnell Aircraft in 1967 to form McDonnell Douglas, where it operated as a di ...
was contracted to develop the F6D-1 Missileer fighter, and the
Bendix Corporation Bendix Corporation is an American manufacturing and engineering company founded in 1924 and subsidiary of Knorr-Bremse since 2002. During various times in its existence, Bendix made automotive brake shoes and systems, vacuum tubes, aircraft ...
received a contract that December for the AAM-N-10 Eagle missile. Eagle was of conventional design for heavy air-to-air missiles of the time, with very low-
aspect ratio The aspect ratio of a geometry, geometric shape is the ratio of its sizes in different dimensions. For example, the aspect ratio of a rectangle is the ratio of its longer side to its shorter side—the ratio of width to height, when the rectangl ...
, nearly
delta wing A delta wing is a wing shaped in the form of a triangle. It is named for its similarity in shape to the Greek uppercase letter delta (letter), delta (Δ). Although long studied, the delta wing did not find significant practical applications unti ...
fins of span extending the length of the missile's body, and a detachable booster stage to allow the missile to accelerate hard at launch before settling into a cruise configuration over the extended distance to the target. The airframe of the missile was subcontracted by Bendix to
Grumman Aircraft The Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, later Grumman Aerospace Corporation, was a 20th century American producer of military and civilian aircraft. Founded on December 6, 1929, by Leroy Grumman and his business partners, it merged in 1 ...
;
Aerojet Aerojet was an American rocket and missile propulsion manufacturer based primarily in Rancho Cordova, California, with divisions in Redmond, Washington, Orange and Gainesville in Virginia, and Camden, Arkansas. Aerojet was owned by GenCorp, ...
was subcontracted to build the AAM-N-10's rocket motors. The booster would propel the Eagle to a speed of
Mach The Mach number (M or Ma), often only Mach, (; ) is a dimensionless quantity in fluid dynamics representing the ratio of flow velocity past a Boundary (thermodynamic), boundary to the local speed of sound. It is named after the Austrian physi ...
3.5; following ignition of the sustainer, the missile would slowly accelerate to a Mach 4.5 cruise speed. A conventional
high explosive An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An exp ...
warhead was standard, and Eagle was designed to be capable of carrying a W42 nuclear warhead. The Eagle utilized midcourse
radio command guidance Missile guidance refers to a variety of methods of guiding a missile or a guided bomb to its intended target. The missile's target accuracy is a critical factor for its effectiveness. Guidance systems improve missile accuracy by improving its P ...
, with signals from the launch aircraft being transmitted to keep the missile on course as it flew an energy-efficient 'lofted' trajectory to the target area. As it neared the target, the AAM-N-10 would switch to
active radar homing Active radar homing (ARH) is a missile guidance method in which a missile contains a radar transceiver (in contrast to semi-active radar homing, which uses only a passive radar, receiver) and the electronics necessary for it to find and track it ...
, its own onboard radar set, derived from the AN/DPN-53 radar carried by the
CIM-10 Bomarc The Boeing CIM-10 Bomarc ("Boeing Michigan Aeronautical Research Center") (IM-99 Weapon System prior to September 1962) was a supersonic ramjet powered long-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) used during the Cold War for the air defense of No ...
surface-to-air missile A surface-to-air missile (SAM), also known as a ground-to-air missile (GTAM) or surface-to-air guided weapon (SAGW), is a missile designed to be launched from the ground or the sea to destroy aircraft or other missiles. It is one type of anti-ai ...
, which utilized a similar flight profile – steering the missile to its target. Launch could be at distances of up to from the target; the AN/APQ-81 radar designed for the Missileer was only capable of detecting targets at range, however the launch aircraft could be cued to a target by an
airborne early warning An airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) system is an airborne radar early warning system designed to detect aircraft, ships, vehicles, missiles and other incoming projectiles at long ranges, as well as performing command and control of t ...
aircraft, launching its missiles to cruise to the target area, where they would use a secondary
home-on-jam An anti-radiation missile (ARM) is a missile designed to detect and home in on an enemy radio emission source. Typically, these are designed for use against an enemy radar, although jammers and even radios used for communications can also be t ...
guidance system for terminal homing. During 1960, a
Douglas A3D Skywarrior The Douglas A-3 Skywarrior is a jet-powered strategic bomber that was developed and produced by the Douglas Aircraft Company. It was designed by Douglas on behalf of the United States Navy, which sought a carrier-capable strategic bomber. In ...
medium bomber was modified as a testbed for the APQ-81 and was intended to launch AAM-N-10s during the testing phase of the program; the modification, with an enlarged radome, led to the aircraft being nicknamed "Snoopy". However, due to cost issues and concerns about the viability of the slow fleet-defense fighter concept, the Missileer program, including the Eagle, was cancelled in December 1961,Simonsen, 2016, p. 108 before any hardware had been built. Despite the cancellation, however, the design of the Eagle provided data that assisted the development of the AAM-N-11 (later
AIM-54 The AIM-54 Phoenix is an American active radar-guided, beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile (AAM), carried in clusters of up to six missiles on the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, its only operational launch platform. The AIM-54 Phoenix was the United S ...
) Phoenix missile carried by the
General Dynamics–Grumman F-111B The General Dynamics–Grumman F-111B was a long-range carrier-based interceptor aircraft planned as a follow-on to the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II for the United States Navy (USN). The F-111B was developed during the 1960s by General Dyna ...
and
Grumman F-14 Tomcat The Grumman F-14 Tomcat is an American carrier-capable supersonic aircraft, supersonic, twinjet, twin-engine, Tandem#Aviation, tandem two-seat, twin-tail, all-weather-capable variable-sweep wing fighter aircraft. The Tomcat was developed for t ...
fighters.


References


Citations


Bibliography

* * * * {{USN missiles Air-to-air missiles of the United States Abandoned military rocket and missile projects of the United States Bendix Corporation