Development
The AGM-122 Sidearm was produced by the re-manufacture of AIM-9C missiles which had been taken out of service. The AIM-9C was a semi-active radar homing variant of the Sidewinder, developed for the US Navy's Vought F-8 Crusader, but used for only a limited period of time. The Sidearm was first tested in 1981. In 1984, Motorola was issued a contract to convert and upgrade AIM-9Cs to AGM-122A standard. A total of about 700 units were produced between 1986 and 1990.
Existing stocks of Sidearm have been depleted, and the missile is no longer in service. Proposals for new-build missiles, under the designation AGM-122B, have not been proceeded with to date.
The AGM-122 was less capable than newer antiradiation missiles like the AGM-88 HARM, but also substantially cheaper, and its lighter weight enabled it to be carried by combat helicopters as well as fighter aircraft and fighter bombers.
Read more about this topic: AGM-122 Sidearm
Famous quotes containing the word development:
“Understanding child development takes the emphasis away from the child’s character—looking at the child as good or bad. The emphasis is put on behavior as communication. Discipline is thus seen as problem-solving. The child is helped to learn a more acceptable manner of communication.”
—Ellen Galinsky (20th century)
“Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity, quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace.”
—Benito Mussolini (1883–1945)
“Such condition of suspended judgment indeed, in its more genial development and under felicitous culture, is but the expectation, the receptivity, of the faithful scholar, determined not to foreclose what is still a question—the “philosophic temper,” in short, for which a survival of query will be still the salt of truth, even in the most absolutely ascertained knowledge.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)