Heat-seeking missiles

Heat-seeking missiles home on the heat of a jet’s exhaust. The instruments show them as FOX2, the radio call a pilot makes on firing one.

Locking on

• Select missiles with X. With a missile loaded, the seeker searches the sky in front of you and growls.
• When an enemy is within the missile’s range and close enough to where your nose points, the seeker locks on: a box appears around the target, and the growl becomes the locking tone.
• Hold the target in the center of your view, and after a few seconds the lock becomes strong, with a steady tone. A missile fired on a strong lock is about half as easily decoyed.
• A missile fired without a lock has nothing to guide it toward, so wait for the box.

Aspect

Early heat-seekers are rear-aspect: they must see the hot exhaust, so they can only lock on from behind the target. Later ones are all-aspect and can lock on from any angle. The list below says which is which.

Countering

• A heat-seeker gives its target no warning until it is in the air. Then the target sees Missile inbound.
• Flares (press F) can draw a heat-seeker off its target. So can the sun: a target flying toward it puts the sun in the seeker’s view.
• Releasing flares or chaff also knocks every lock on you back to weak for a few seconds.

Reloading

Missile rails reload by themselves, one at a time. The missile you have selected reloads first: on an aircraft that also carries radar-guided missiles, select Fox 2 and its rails jump the queue, while a radar-guided rail already part way through waits with its progress kept. Land on a friendly aircraft carrier to rearm at once.

Reading the figures

Each missile below is listed with its speed, the shortest and longest range it can be fired at, the seconds its rail takes to reload, and the damage of a direct hit. A near miss explodes for less.

Missiles

• PL-2 — rear-aspect (583m/s 266-3500m 22s) [824dmg]
• PL-8 — all-aspect (1200m/s 166-8250m 18s) [875dmg]
• AIM-4 — rear-aspect (1029m/s 266-5000m 22s) [483dmg]
• AIM-9B — rear-aspect (583m/s 266-4000m 22s) [750dmg]
• AIM-9J — rear-aspect (857m/s 166-5500m 18s) [750dmg]
• IRIS-T — all-aspect (1029m/s 166-25000m 18s) [750dmg]
• R.550 Magic 1 — rear-aspect (1029m/s 100-5500m 18s) [875dmg]
• R.550 Magic 2 — all-aspect (1029m/s 100-8250m 18s) [875dmg]
• PL-10 — all-aspect (1029m/s 100-20000m 18s) [750dmg]
• Sky Sword I — all-aspect (857m/s 100-9900m 18s) [862dmg]

Planes