Matra R550 Magic 1

Description

The Matra R550 Magic 1 missile (scale is approximate)

The Matra R.550 Magic 1 is a French IR homing air-to-air missile that was intended to replace the AIM-9s in French Army service. It was introduced in update "Starfighters". It is a light missile, classified as an "autodefense missile" in french service.

Vehicles equipped with this weapon

• Jaguar A
• Mirage IIIC

General info

The R.550 Magic is the most capable missile currently at War Thunder, with boasting 30G overload and resistance to G overload when launching, make it the most deadly missile at top tier when use correctly. It is to be noted that the Magic is a very light missile, with only two seconds of boost time. The missiles comes equipped with large and numerous control surfaces, ensuring high manoeuvrability throughout the flight time. The price of these big control surfaces is a high drag, with the weapon decelerating quickly after end of boost time, limiting the missile range.

The weapon enable time is 0.5 second, meaning the missile will accelerate straight for half a second before starting manoeuvres.

Effective damage

The explosive charge is of six kilograms, generally enough to deal with any fighter/attacker with a single hit, but the proximity fuse is very sensible, and the missile can explode far enough from the target, only provoking a critical hit, or two.

It is safe to assume that an aircraft reached by the weapon is damaged enough to either be dead, or out of the fight.

• R-60 - A soviet short range IR missile with excellent overload performance but poor booster capability

Usage in battles

The Magic is mounted on the Mirage series of aircrafts, being extremely well integrated, and slavable to the aircraft's radar. Meaning that if the Mirage's Cyrano radar is locked on an enemy aircraft, enabling the missile seeker will immediately activate the missile seeker's gimbals, and the seeker will orientate itself in the direction of the locked target. Allowing a certain capability of "off-boresight" shooting of the missile. This fact is important in close range engagments and dogfight.

Overall, the Matra 550 Magic missile is to be used as a close encounter platorm. Firing the weapon on an enemy at a distance of more than 2 kms yields poor results, especially if the target is fleeing at high speed. Under 1.5 km mark, the hit is nearly assured. Note that the use of flares is an effective countermeasure against the Magic, but the missile onboard computers are pretty resistant to flares seductions. Concerning off-boresight shoots, sending away the weapon over 1-1.2 km is not advised, because the trajectory correction needed for an off-boresight shoot is higher that a standard shoot.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Great turning capability
• Can be slaved onto the radar
• High resistance against flare decoys
• Can launch in any G condition

Cons:

• Poor low speed turning capability, easy to dodge if launched close to target

History

The R.550 Magic (backronym for Missile Auto-Guidé Interception et Combat) is a short-range air-to-air missile designed in 1968 by French company Matra to compete with the American AIM-9 Sidewinder, and it was made backwards compatible with the Sidewinder launch hardware.

On 11 January 1972, a Gloster Meteor of the centre for in-flight trials fired an R550 Magic and shot down a Nord CT20 target drone (unmanned aerial vehicle).

Mass-produced from 1976, the Magic was adopted by the French Air Force and Navy.

The Argentine Air Force received "Magic 1" for its Mirage IIIEA during the 1982 Falklands War.

The Argentine Navy received "Magic 1" for its Super Etendards after the 1982 Falklands War.

An upgraded version, the Magic 2, replaced the original model in 1986. In total, 11,300 Magic 2s were produced; they were exported, notably to Iraq and Greece, who used them in combat.

The Magic is still carried by the Dassault Rafale, Dassault Mirage 2000, F-16, Sea Harrier (FRS51), MiG-21 LanceR,^{[circular reference]} Super Étendard, Mirage F1, Mirage 5, and Mirage III. It is gradually being replaced by the MBDA MICA.

Four hundred and eighty were sold to Taiwan and used by the Republic of China Air Force.

Media

Images

The Matra 550 Magic 1 missile. Note the size and number of control surfaces, and the lack of thrust vectoring in the missile's rocket motor nozzle.

• 

  R.550 Magic seen on Mirage IIIC

Videos

Best guided missiles discusses the Matra R550 Magic 1 at 0:42 - War Thunder Official Channel

See also

Links to the articles on the War Thunder Wiki that you think will be useful for the reader, for example:

• reference to the article about the variant of the weapon;
• references to approximate analogues by other nations and research trees.

External links

Paste links to sources and external resources, such as:

• topic on the official game forum;
• other literature.