Radar missiles
Radar missiles carry their own radar, and home on its echo from the target. The instruments show them as FOX3, the radio call a pilot makes on firing one.
Locking on
- Select missiles with X. When an enemy is within the missile’s range and close enough to where your nose points, the radar locks on, a box appears around the target, and you hear the tracking 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.
Notching
A radar missile picks its target out of the sea below by the target’s motion toward or away from it. A target flying perpendicular to the missile’s path has no such motion, blends into the sea, and may break the lock. This is called notching.
Countering
- A radar lock warns its target at once: they see Radar warning, and Missile inbound once a missile is in the air.
- To shake one, notch it: turn until you are flying perpendicular to the missile’s path, and hold that heading.
- Chaff (press F with flares, or C alone) can draw a radar missile off its target.
- 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 heat-seeking missiles, select Fox 3 and its rails jump the queue, while a heat-seeking 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
- AIM-4F (1372m/s 266-6000m 22s) [875dmg]
- AIM-120 (1029m/s 166-25000m 24s) [750dmg]
- MICA (1372m/s 100-20000m 21s) [458dmg]
- PL-15 (1372m/s 200-25000m 26s) [750dmg]
- Sky Sword II (1372m/s 166-15000m 24s) [750dmg]
- Astra Mk1 (1372m/s 166-25000m 24s) [750dmg]
Planes