Zitat

[7.2] AS-20 / AS-30 / AS-30L

Early production also used visual guidance using tracking flares and a pitch-yaw joystick, as with the AS-20. However, an improved version of the AS-30 was introduced in 1964, which eliminated the vibrating vanes and instead used four pop-out tailfins for guidance. A new semi-automatic guidance system was introduced as well, in which all the pilot had to do was keep the target lined up in his sight. The guidance system sensed the location of the missile using an infrared sensor, and the system's computer adjusted the weapon's flight path to keep it on track.

About 3,870 AS-30 missiles were built. Users included France, Britain, West Germany, Switzerland, South Africa, India, and Peru, though only France used the semi-automatic guidance system. Apparently a lightweight version of the AS-30 was developed to allow the weapon to be carried on smaller aircraft; what few details available indicate that it had a half-sized warhead and shorter wings.

* In 1974, Aerospatiale and Thomson-CSF began work on a laser-seeking version of the AS-30, the "AS-30L", using technology licensed from Martin Marietta in the US. Thomson-CSF developed a laser targeting pod named "ATLIS (Automatic Tracking Laser Illumination System)" and a matching laser seeker head for the missile. By 1980, preproduction AS-30Ls were being fired by French Armee de l'Air Jaguar strike fighters equipped with the ATLIS II pod, which was fitted with a TV camera to aid in targeting. First production deliveries of the AS-30L were in 1983.

Unlike the AS-30, the AS-30L has roll-stabilization and an inertial guidance system to keep it on track until the seeker can pick up laser light reflections. The improved missile's physical specifications and performance are otherwise very close to the original AS-30, though it is a bit shorter because of the blunt nose of the laser seeker head.

NORD AS-30:
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spec metric english
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wingspan 1 meter 3 feet 4 inches
length 3.84 meters 12 feet 7 inches
diameter 34 centimeters 13.4 inches
total weight 520 kilograms 1,146 pounds
warhead weight 240 kilograms 529 pounds

speed Mach 1.5
range at altitude 11 kilometers 7 MI / 6 NMI
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