Who invented the heat seeking missile

Air Force F pilot instructor. The Chinese force broke from the fight and retreated to Chinese airstrips. With nine confirmed kills and two more considered probable, Taiwan had not lost a single jet. Once the pilot landed, Chinese engineers removed and disassembled the missile before shipping it off to the Soviet Union to see if it could be reverse engineered.

The American Sidewinder missile offered the Soviets a crash course in advanced weapon systems. Shortly thereafter, the Soviets produced the R-3 version of their new missile and began shipping the new weapon to different Warsaw Pact nations. They also provided the plans for the missile to the Chinese in exchange for their help in acquiring it. Just four years after the United States first developed this revolutionary missile technology, it was becoming the most prevalent air-to-air weapon in their enemy's arsenals, with a production run in the tens of thousands.

However, the United States had already begun work on improving the AIM-9 missiles, releasing a number of iterations and quickly regaining the advantage in terms of guided missile capability. Once inside, Ramminger and two accomplices simply loaded a modern, operational AIM-9 missile into a wheelbarrow and wheeled it down the airstrip to his waiting Mercedes-Benz.

Sometimes espionage is just that simple. Once home, Ramminger disassembled the missile, loaded it into a box, and mailed it to Moscow. Frustrated, the spy returned to Germany and discovered that the airline had sent the box to the wrong destination. He shipped the missile out again, and boarded yet another plane for Moscow. Using the new missile, Soviet technicians were able to once again reverse engineer the improved technology the Americans had developed, resulting in the RM missile just a few years later.

The Soviets would go on to share this weapon with the Warsaw Pact nations as well as others, making it one of the most common weapon systems American aircraft have had to worry about in the decades since. It can even be used to attack ground targets like tanks without modification. The Sidewinder remains one of the most widely deployed air-to-air weapons in service today, flying aboard American fighters ranging from the longest-serving Fs to newest Fs just rolling off the assembly line.

Type keyword s to search. But the AIM-9 was only beginning an extraordinarily long career, characterized by near-constant improvements. The radar-homing 9C, designed for the Crusader, was phased out along with that plane the remaining 9Cs were adapted as AGMA Sidearm anti-radar missiles.

The 9D, featuring a nitrogen-cooled seeker for enhanced heat sensitivity, employed a more powerful rocket motor to triple its range. The 9E introduced Peltier-effect thermoelectric cooling, while the 9H and 9J were the first to feature solid-state electronics. When one of the Fitters missed with an Atoll from nearly head-on, the Tomcats Sidewindered them both from behind as they fled.

The U. On May 1, the opening day of battle, Flight Cmdr. If the 9L still had trouble acquiring other missiles head-on, against jet pipes it was a magic bullet.

On May 24, No. From first launch to last kill, the dogfight lasted less than five seconds. I fired two missiles in very quick succession against two targets. The missiles guided, and…. I was trying for a gun kill on the third, when my wingman fired over my shoulder and his missile scored. IWM KD With its double-delta canards pulling 35 Gs in a turn and its laser-triggered proximity fuze setting off a pound annular-blast fragmentation warhead, over the Falklands the 9L achieved an 82 percent kill rate.

The Sidewinder L is a very, very effective missile and our older models could not hope to equal them. The 9L proved so deadly, in fact, that the U. For the rest of the market there was the dumbed-down 9P, of which more than 20, were sold. For American fighters there was the AIM-9M, a low-smoke 9L with even better target recognition and anti-countermeasures. Witness the F Nighthawk stealth fighter and B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, whose exhaust slots leave wide, thin—and cool—jet wakes.

Some 60 years after it was first introduced, the AIM-9 looks to be one of those weapons, like the AK and B, that are more easily improved than replaced. To date, more than , Sidewinders have been built for 28 countries, making it the most widely used missile in the West—not to mention one of the oldest, cheapest and most successful, with nearly kills worldwide.

Against lesser-armed opponents, Navy and Air Force test pilots have achieved 9X kill ratios of better than to It also has wires and batteries to power things inside it. Login to rate this Glog.

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