Russian-made AA-8 Aphid air-to-air missiles
AA-8 APHID K-60 (R-60, Object 62)
Toward the end of the 1960s the Molniya design bureau begin working on the first missile for tactical air combat, the K-60 (R-60, Object 62), with infrared self-guidance. Series production of this missile began in 1973, with the R-60 missile being certified as a weapon for a variety combat aircraft.
The R-60 missile is an unusually small missile, weighing half as much as the lightest Western missiles, with a correspondingly small warhead which weighs barely 3.5 kg). The R-60 on attack aircraft such as the MiG-27, Su-24 or Su-25 serves as a self-defense missile, and on fighter aircraft such as the MiG-23, MiG-25, and Su-15 it is occasionally used as a supplementary missile. The R-60 missile had an unusually short development time, with only four years passing from the beginning of its design to the beginning of its production -- the normal development process of Soviet air-to-air missiles typically required 8 to 9 years. This rapid development was facilitated by the availability of a wealth of experimental data on the K-13 missile, and no new research was done for the R-60. Further developments of the R-60 include the R-60M missile, the export variant R-60MK, and the UZR-60 training version.
Specifications Manufacturer Date Deployed 1975 Range 3 km, 5 km 10 km Speed Mach 2+ Propulsion One solid-propellant rocket motor Fuze Two active radar fuze aerials located aft of the moving control fins, and a single strake running down the forward half of the body. Active laser in R-60M Guidance All aspect Infrared Warhead 6 kg ( 1.6 kg of which is uranium ) HE fragmentation Launch Weight 65 kg Length 2.08 m Diameter 130 mm Fin Span 0.43 m Platforms Mi-24, Su-15bis, Su-17M3, Yak-38, Su-25, Su-24M, MiG-21bis, MiG-23, MiG-25, MiG-27, MiG-29, MiG-31