Military Aircraft Videos
AGM-114 Hellfire
AGM-114 Hellfire (Helicopter launched fire-and-forget) is a U.S. missile system.Hellfire was initially designed to be primarily used as a "tank-buster", launched from helicopters to defeat armored vehicles. It has since matured to be a comprehensive weapon system which can be deployed from rotary wing aircraft, fixed wing aircraft, naval assets and land based systems against a variety of targets. Despite the expanded acronym, most versions of the Hellfire missile are not truly "fire-and-forget"—all the laser-guided versions require constant illumination or "painting" of the target from launch to impact. The AGM-114L is a true fire-and-forget weapon: it requires no further guidance after launch and can hit its target without the launcher being in line of sight of the target. The Hellfire (along with the Maverick) was to be replaced by the Joint Common Missile (JCM) around 2011. The JCM was developed with a tri-mode seeker and a multi-purpose warhead that would combine the capabilities of the several Hellfire variants. In the budget for FY2006, the US Department of Defense canceled a number of projects that they felt no longer warranted continuation based on their cost effectiveness, including the JCM. Due to the U.S. military's continuing need for a proven precision-strike aviation weapon in the interim until a successor to the JCM is fielded, as well as extensive foreign sales, it is likely the Hellfire will be in service for many years.Hellfire missiles were successfully used by U.S. Army troops against seven targets during Operation Just Cause in Panama in 1990. Hellfire was used in the opening strikes of Operation Desert Storm on January 17, 1991, when eight AH-64 Apache helicopters used Hellfire missiles as well as Hydra 70 rockets to destroy two Iraqi early warning ground-control radar sites. In early 2002, RQ-1 Predator UAVs were armed with Hellfires and used in combat. The Hellfire missile has been used extensively in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and ongoing operations in Iraq.
