AAM-5 (Japanese missile)

The Mitsubishi AAM-5, also called the Type 04 air-to-air missile, is a short-range air-to-air missile developed and produced by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for the Japan Air Self-Defense Force. Work on it began in 1991 as a replacement for the AAM-3, or Type 90, missile, and it has been operational since 2004. Unlike the Type 90 it has no canard control surfaces and instead steers with thrust vectoring for high agility, with narrow strakes along most of the body. It uses inertial guidance with a fiber-optic gyroscope, which lets it lock on after launch, and a helmet-mounted display can cue it at targets far off the aircraft nose. Terminal homing is by infrared imaging, and the article places it in the same generation as the AIM-9X and IRIS-T. The improved AAM-5B has a dual-wavelength infrared seeker from NEC, a three-axis gimbal for better off-boresight use and counter-countermeasure performance, and a Stirling engine that extends seeker cooling time. It carries a blast fragmentation warhead with a laser proximity fuze, weighs 95 kilograms, measures 3.1 meters in length and is carried by the F-15J and the Mitsubishi F-2.