The Skyflash, or Sky Flash in marketing material, was a medium-range semi-active radar homing air-to-air missile derived from the US AIM-7 Sparrow missile and carried by Royal Air Force McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantoms and Tornado F3s, Italian Aeronautica Militare and Royal Saudi Air Force Tornados and Swedish Flygvapnet Saab Viggens.
Skyflash replaced the original Raytheon conical scanning seeker with a Marconi inverse monopulse seeker that worked with the F-4's radar. Monopulse seekers are more accurate, less susceptible to jamming, and able to easily pick out targets at low altitudes. It offered significantly better performance than the original seeker, allowing British Aerospace to dispense with upgrades to the warhead that were carried out in the US to address poor accuracy.
Skyflash was tested in the US, but after trials against experimental monopulse seekers from Raytheon, the United States Navy elected to order a different monopulse-equipped version of the Sparrow, the AIM-7M. Both Skyflash and the AIM-7M were later replaced by the more capable AMRAAM.
Classnames:
WPN Class
rksla3_wpn_skyflash
Mass
Mag Class name
rksla3_mag_skyflash_conformalx1
Hardpoint
RKSLA3_SKYFLASH_CONFORMAL
230
Ammo Class
rksla3_ammo_skyflash_drop
230
submunitionAmmo
NONE
N/A
WPN Class
rksla3_wpn_skyflash
Mass
Mag Class name
rksla3_mag_skyflash_lau127x1
Hardpoint
RKSLA3_SKYFLASH_LAU127
269.5
rksla3_mag_skyflash_directx1
RKSLA3_SKYFLASH_DIRECT
230
Ammo Class
rksla3_ammo_skyflash
230
submunitionAmmo
NONE
N/A
a3_documentation/cvwp/skyflash.txt · Last modified: by rock