Unique Point of View: R-73 Missile Launch as seen from the pylon of a Russian Su-27 Flanker

Cool photo of a Vympel R-73 (NATO reporting name AA-11 Archer).

The R-73 is an infrared homing (heat-seeking), short-range missile with a sensitive, cryogenic cooled seeker that can “see” targets up to 40° off the missile’s centerline.

Developed by Vympel NPO, the missile has an off-boresight capability and can be targeted by a helmet-mounted sight (HMS): pilots can designate targets from a minimum range of about 300 meters to nearly 30 km by simply looking at them.

In this post you can see an interesting image released by UAC, the Russian holding which encompasses Irkut, Mikoyan, Sukhoi, Ilyushin, Tupolev, Beriev and Yakovlev, showing an R-73 just fired by a Sukhoi Su-27.

Image credit: Airforce.ru

 

About David Cenciotti
David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.