Looking for a definitive history of AIM-4 Falcon

[pathology_doc]

Anyone who's read Ron Westrum's Sidewinder will know the sort of thing I want. Detailed development history, origins, the people involved and their backgrounds, although I wouldn't mind it getting more technical (preferably much more technical) than Westrum's book.

Otherwise if you can point me to online sources and archives of unclassified material, maybe I might just write it myself one day...

 

[SOC]

I wrote this about 15 years ago as a brief overview because I likewise found no serious history anywhere, and what I did find was often full of contradictions or inaccurate information:

https://ausairpower.net/Falcon-Evolution.html
I've found a bit more and could update it at some point, but it keeps falling off my radar. Sources are listed at the end, and I've still got all the files, most of which are in PDF format if they aren't actual books.

 

[chris707-2]

FWIW, an AIM-4D training round I saw a few months back:

 

[NMaude]

There are several good documentaries about the Falcon missile-family on YouTube one of which IIRC is by the "Not A Pound For Air To Ground" channel.

The Hughes Falcon has a poor reputation. General Robin Olds famously remarked that it wasn't called a 'hittile' for a reason. And its true that compared to the Sidewinder, the AIM-4D performed quite poorly over Vietnam.​

But take any weapon out of context and out of role and you can quite quickly find flaws. This video gets into the history and the true capabilities of the Falcon family, which for good or ill, was one of the most influential weapon systems of the Cold War.​

Sources:

Information on the Falcon is quite sparse. This outstanding article is therefore of great use to anyone seeking to understand its history: https://www.ausairpower.net/Falcon-Ev...https://www.youtube.com/redirect?ev...power.net/Falcon-Evolution.html&v=gh-RMI5xi6E

Likewise, the ever-interesting F-106 homepage gives useful information on the 'Super' Falcon variants: https://www.f-106deltadart.com/weapon...

 

[pathology_doc]

I wrote this about 15 years ago as a brief overview because I likewise found no serious history anywhere, and what I did find was often full of contradictions or inaccurate information:

https://ausairpower.net/Falcon-Evolution.html
I've found a bit more and could update it at some point, but it keeps falling off my radar. Sources are listed at the end, and I've still got all the files, most of which are in PDF format if they aren't actual books.

Yes, I know, I've seen it and read it many times. And it left me hungering for more!