First of all they bought them. They were'nt given.So, some almost 40 year old fighters we gave them. The Phoenix has never achieved one combat air-to-air kill for the entire lifetime of the project (EDIT: for the US, the Iranians got a shytload of kills with it beating up on Iraq's whack AF). It's a fat duck of a missile designed to shoot down a mythical nuclear bomber fliying 100 miles away with limited counter measures in an environment with no other aircraft traffic between the shooter and target.
fukk Hollywood, the Navy realized that their F/A-18s were better, cheaper, more practical platforms. To this day I think the F/A-18 has been a better air-to-air platform.
I found the wiki page for the last time the US tried using Phoenix missiles. All misses.
- On January 5, 1999, a pair of US F-14s fired two Phoenixes at Iraqi MiG-25s southeast of Baghdad. Both AIM-54s' rocket motors failed and neither missile hit its target.[7][8]
- On September 9, 1999, another US F-14 launched an AIM-54 at an Iraqi MiG-23 that was heading south into the no-fly zone from Al Taqaddum air base west of Baghdad. The missile missed, eventually going into the ground after the Iraqi fighter reversed course and fled north.[9]
An AIM-54 Phoenix being attached to an F-14 wing pylon before the forward fins were installed (2003).
But yes long-range air-to-air missiles are mostly a pipe dream and even newer ones havent improved much. Thus why the whole F-35 thing has people skeptical when it's comes to air-to-air engagements. The U.S. is banking on stealth being the way of the future. They hope that by having a fighter that cant be detected, they can achieve sniper-like kills and never have to engage in a dog-fight since it (F-35) that can barely dog fight within visual range. According to most experts and test pilots it's sitting duck in close air WVR combat.
However, Russia and China are doing everything they can to get super-maneuvrable aircrafts that can easily dodge these missiles being shot at them from long-range. They are also banking on newer radars will make the whole concept os stealth useless in the future. The Chinese have already proven that stealth aircrafts can be detected using quantum radars. It's just a matter of increasing the range of quantum radars at this point. It's only a matter of time, really.
- First stealth aircrafts were advertised as "invisible to radar" and simply couldnt be detected.
- Then when they were easily detected in international exercises they scaled it down to "well it cannot be detected when going towards the radar source heads on"
- Then when the Bosnians shot that US F-117 down they toned that shyt down to "well it's not invisible. It just has reduced radar signature"
- Now that the myth is being proven wrong again they've scaled it back to "well we never go in alone. We bring growlers to jam the radars" that being the FA-18 growlers
But in the end the F-35 should be a decent multirole fighter, tho. It's ability to communicate with other aircrafts and share targets is a game changer even tho it leaves it exposed. They have way too much money invested in it to let it fail. They just cant keep bulshytting people with that "invisible to radar" shyt
THe F-22 should bail them out wherever the F-35 fails, tho.
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