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F-14A Tomcat Phoenix AIM54A


Tin_Bitz

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Good afternoon all

 

I am about to start building the Tamiya F-14A Tomcat in the VF-84 Jolly Rodgers BUNO 160414/AJ201, USS Nimitz 1981. 

I’m looking at the AIM-54A Phoenix Missiles which the DACO book instructs are all white in colour and the Tamiya instructions say the nose cone is Sky Grey- any ideas?

Also the coloured bands vary in colour from Blue to yellow to red/brown. These are the ones that run round the missiles in each section. Does anyone know what these mean and also which ones I should be using for the jet I’m looking to build? There is very little information on this on the net or the books…

Any advice would be great - I have the DACO book by Danny Coremans and the Haynes manual. 

Thanks for taking the time to read. 

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A quick search of images online yields either all white or Light Ghost Gray with white nose cone. I think in 1981 it was still white.

 

Blue bands denote inert practice missiles; yellow and/or brown are live.

 

I'm sure others will have more to say.

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Thanks for the gen Seawinder, the later C version were the grey coloured version. 
 

I could not find any thing on the coloured bands but is good to know as the scheme I was doing intercepted Mig-25 Foxbats off the Libyan coast can’t imagine training rounds would have been any good to them….

 

Many thanks for help 👍

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The bands around the missile sections show hazard associated with their contents, they are used to inform aircrew/groundcrew/rescue and fire crews what is on the aircraft.

 

Yellow - High Explosive.  This is used on the warhead section.

 

Brown - Low Explosive.  This is the description of the solid rocket fuel or propellant section.

 

Blue -  Inert Training or Practice weapon, no explosive warhead or propellant is contained in this weapon but the seeker head could be real to provide aircrew training experience.  (could be a band or the whole weapon painted)

 

Black - These bands indicate where the missile can be supported for storage or loading onto the aircraft.  However there is one other use for a black band, when combined with a yellow band it denotes armour piercing.

 

There are other coloured bands but for aircraft missiles these are the main ones.

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1 hour ago, Giorgio N said:

The radome was not painted but was of a ceramic material that started white and soon turned into an off-white/light grey colour because of the dirt accumulated.

 

 

1 hour ago, tweeky said:

Thanks for the link- really helpful and have managed to avoid putting the incorrect markings on the missiles.

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10 minutes ago, Retired Bob said:

The bands around the missile sections show hazard associated with their contents, they are used to inform aircrew/groundcrew/rescue and fire crews what is on the aircraft.

 

Yellow - High Explosive.  This is used on the warhead section.

 

Brown - Low Explosive.  This is the description of the solid rocket fuel or propellant section.

 

Blue -  Inert Training or Practice weapon, no explosive warhead or propellant is contained in this weapon but the seeker head could be real to provide aircrew training experience.  (could be a band or the whole weapon painted)

 

Black - These bands indicate where the missile can be supported for storage or loading onto the aircraft.  However there is one other use for a black band, when combined with a yellow band it denotes armour piercing.

 

There are other coloured bands but for aircraft missiles these are the main ones.

Great- thank you for taking the time to explain and expand all the markings. 

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The stripe color refers to that particular section of the missile.  For instance, missiles fired in the U.S. for WSEP frequently have a blue band around the warhead section, because the warhead is often replaced by a telemetry package and brown bands around the motor section, because that remains live.  That way if the missile doesn't perform as expected they have some clue as to what happened.

 

Regards,

Murph

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