AIM-54 Phoenix

The AIM-54 Phoenix missile is a long range, high speed missile.  It was designed by Hughes as 

a missile to be carried by the General Dynamics F-111,

but the F-111 program was cancelled 

in 1969. Instead, it was adapted by the US Navy to be carried on their new fleet defense fighter, the Grumman F-14 Tomcat.

   The Phoenix was originally designed to kill, at long range, Soviet bombers, before they
could fire short range cruise missiles at the aircraft carrier or its escorts.  With that in mind, the Hughes designers gave it a range of 128 miles.  The Tomcat's radar,
which could reach
133 miles ahead of the fighter and 174 wide

, can track up to 20 targets at one time and pick

out four or six of them as targets for the Phoenix missiles. 
The Tomcat fired the missile, 

and from then on the missile's own radar took over,

accelerating it at Mach 3.5 toward it's
target.
 It was very difficult to avoid a Phoenix,
because the guidance system was programmed
to take the missile up high, out of range of the target's radar,
and then send it down at
nearly Mach 4. 
The F-14 typically carried four Phoenixes 

and two AIM-9 Sidewindermissiles.

    Besides the US Navy, Iran is the only other operator of the Phoenix.  In 1986, the
Grumman Corporation sold Iran 80 Tomcats and 633 Phoenixes.  The missile performed with 

great renown in the Iranian Air Force. It shot down many Iraqi aircraft in the Iran-Iraq War.

The Iranian Air Force still operates the AIM-54.  
      
    Hughes AIM-54 Phoenix 

Range: 128 miles

Warhead: High explosive, 132

Weight: 975 pounds

Engine: Rocketdyne Mk 47 solid-propellant rocket

Speed: (cruising) Mach 3.5

Present operators: Iran

Previous operators: US Navy