Cool photo of a Vympel R-73 (NATO reporting name AA-11 Archer).

The R-73 is an infrared homing (heat-seeking), short-range missile with a sensitive, cryogenic cooled seeker that can “see” targets up to 40° off the missile’s centerline.

Developed by Vympel NPO, the missile has an off-boresight capability and can be targeted by a helmet-mounted sight (HMS): pilots can designate targets from a minimum range of about 300 meters to nearly 30 km by simply looking at them.

In this post you can see an interesting image released by UAC, the Russian holding which encompasses Irkut, Mikoyan, Sukhoi, Ilyushin, Tupolev, Beriev and Yakovlev, showing an R-73 just fired by a Sukhoi Su-27.

Image credit: UAC (United Aircraft Corp)

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