AIM-7 SPARROW: Development And Evolution Of A Pioneering But Troubled Weapon System

The AIM-7 Sparrow was a highly ambitious and sophisticated piece of 1950s technology, which pushed the boundaries of what was possible to cram into a missile body and airframe. Although its performance was disappointing in Vietnam, it remained the primary armament of USAF fighters until the AMRAAM entered widespread service in the late 1990s.

Despite its importance to Cold War aviation history, I struggled to find any good single books or videos on the Sparrow. This is my attempt to fill that gap.

Key sources.

I used a very wide range of documents, books, forums and other media to assemble this video. Some important and interesting ones are:

Michel's "Clashes" covers Sparrow performance data in some depth

...as does the Navy "Report Of The Air-To-Air Missile System Capability Review, July - November 1968"...

...and "All The Missiles Work: Technological Dislocations And Military Innovation" by Steven Fino

"F-15 Eagle Engaged" by Steve Davies and Doug Dildy is a useful resource for the Sparrow's implementation on the F-15

This absolutely excellent thread on Secret Projects, covers key aspects of the weapon: https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/thre...

A typically great blog on Tailhook Topics on early Sparrow: https://tailspintopics.blogspot.com/2...

"Iranian F-14 Units In Combat" by Tom Cooper and Farzad Bishop contains multiple stories and extensive data tables about the use of Sparrows by the F-14 against Iraq

A useful DCS post - I find this forum generally quite good for in-depth performance and firing sequences as people are trying to model those aspects into the game: https://forum.dcs.world/topic/326136-...

A slightly less structured, but also insightful War Thunder forum post: https://old-forum.warthunder.com/inde...