serverandenforcer 33 Posted October 10, 2010 Some of you here may have already heard from me that my dad, back in the 1980's did work on the AIM-120 AMRAAM. What I didn't know until tonight is how influential he was with the project. Apparently, during development, Hughes Aircraft and Missiles (HAM) contracted a company down in San Diego to design and produce the AGC Amp for the missile. They were going to build it out of gallium-arcinide, which would have cost the part $330,000, and the part was going to be used 3 times in the missile. My dad saw this and told his bosses that he thinks he can design a part to do the same job, but made out of silicon, in which the part would only cost $50! HAM did a design concession and approved for my dad to design and build the part. The design ended up being a big success. It was more efficient and reliable than the part from the other company and just about took $1,000,000 off the price tag of a missile! He received a peformance achievement award and several other commendatoions for the job. I just thought that was kind of cool and wanted to share it with you folks. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SFP1Ace 33 Posted October 10, 2010 Cool! I don't think that an a-a missile with a price tag of well over 1000000$ would be very cost effective Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MigBuster 2,861 Posted October 10, 2010 Crikey - thats the kind of bloke you want in any company - what a guy! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ghost029 1 Posted October 10, 2010 This is the kind of man that everyone always wants and there are never enough of. Congraduations Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
serverandenforcer 33 Posted October 12, 2010 All right, so I did a quick study up on how much the AIM-120A cost when first distributed, and it came up to $300,000. So I told my dad this and he was kind of surprised. Then he told that he might have gotten the figures wrong and instead of almost 1 million bucks, it might have been in the 1 thousand dollar range lol! Anyways, wanted to make sure I gave you guys an accurate story. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
JediMaster 451 Posted October 12, 2010 AFAIK the AIM-54 was the only AAM that cost over $1m, which is one reason why it was so good and also why it was not made in massive numbers. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
