Pitbull question

does anyone know how far away from the target can the Aim-120C track the target once gone Pitbull? or as soon as it's launched?

reason why I ask today I was messing about in SP and I watched my missile tracking in to see how it reacted. however I saw the contact fire an Aim-120C then 2 seconds later my missile destroyed the aircraft. so I figured the Aim-120c didn't go Pitbull so I'm fine. when the missile came off the rail I was 19nm from it and it tracked me perfectly all the way till it hit me. I thought this wasn't able to happen if it the mothership wasn't able to support it until Pitbull?

I had another thought that it just kept flying until it picked me up again. but in the TACVIEW you can see the missile itself is always tracking and turning straight for me

I believe that when the AIM-120 radar goes active (whether or not guided by the launch platform radar) it will lock onto any object within its FOV that has the most prominent radar cross-section.

thanks for your quick reply.

I decided to do some testing. I put myself in a F-18 and made another F-18 fly at me, I set a trigger so when I fire a missile I explode 1 second later. the result was interesting. there is no AWACS and I explode 24nm away from the bad guy the missile lofts and once the Aim-120C is 8nm away 20,000ft above the target and 92degree's offset with the missile flying nose into space it then does a dive down and kills the bad guy.

I've attached a tacview file. I thought without support this couldn't happen right? or is the radar FOV big enough to still be picking this up?

Edit: so I did this same test with a few aircraft and they seem to do basically the same thing except the aim-54 flew straight past it. So i knew the aim-54 had to be told to go Pitbull but I'm guessing most other missile just do it themselves correct?

toying with Aim-120C.zip

The AIM-54 needs a signal from the F-14 to go pitbull. The AIM-120 will fly its last calculated intercept course and automatically go pitbull some 8-10 NM from the last calculated impact point. If the target happens to still be within the missile radar's field of view, the missile will pick it up and home to it.

From my own tests, the AIM-120, if it is loses guidance, will fly to the last calculated target point, not the intercept point, so that's the wrong thing from my perspective. The missile should calculate and fly to the intercept point based on the targets last known position and motion vector.

For your case, make a test where you explode 1 sec after launch and the target also turns 90 degrees left or right (you can set up a waypoint 90 degrees from the first one and use the Switch to Waypoint triggered action), after 2 or 3 seconds. Your missile will not (and should not) turn to intercept, if the target turns before its own radar goes active.