of the expensive technology that goes into a fighter jet. Attack helicopter or
bomber wouldn't be much use on the battlefield with out any ordnance.while there're
not as expensive or complex as the military that carry them guns, missiles and
bombs are pretty impressive aircraft in their own right. Smart weapons don't just
sail through the air: they actually find their own way to the target.
One of the oldest and most successful smart weapons in the U.S arsenal, the legendry
AIM-9 Sidewinder missile. The small and simple sidewinder is a highly effective
combination of electronics and explosive power, brought together with incredible
Sidewinder AIM-9 (air intercept missile 9) is classified as a short-range, air-to-air
missile. Simply put, its job is to launch from an airborne aircraft and "kill"
an enemy aircraft (damage it to the point that it goes down). Missiles like the
Sidewinder are called smart weapons because they have built-in seeking systems
that let them home in on a target.
technology of smart weapons really got going in the decade following World War
II. Most early guided weapon prototypes were built around radar technology, which
proved to be expensive and problematic. These missiles had their own radar sensors,
but obviously could not carry their own radar transmitters. For the guidance system
to lock on an enemy plane, some remote radar system had to "illuminate"
the target by bouncing radar beams off of it. In most cases, this meant the pilot
had to keep the aircraft in a vulnerable position after firing in order to keep
a radar lock on the enemy until the missile could find it. Additionally, the radar
equipment in the missile was large and expensive, which made for a high-cost,
bulky weapon. Most of these missiles had something around a 90 percent failure
rate (nine shots out of 10 missed their targets).
In 1947, a Naval physicist named Bill McLean took it upon himself to build a better
system -- a missile that would seek out the heat from an enemy aircraft's engine
system. Since the missile would home in on the target's own emitted energy, rather
than reflected radio energy, the pilot could "fire and forget" -- that
is, he could launch the missile and get clear. In place of the bulky radar equipment,
the missile would use a relatively small heat-sensing photovoltaic cell to "see"
the target. This meant it could be built much smaller than the current radar prototypes,
and at a much lower cost
Officially, the Navy had no interest in non-radar guidance systems, but at the
China Lake, California, Naval Ordnance Test Station (NOTS) where McLean was employed,
researchers had enough freedom to pursue unconventional projects. Under the guise
of missile fuze development, McLean and his colleagues worked out the design of
the first Sidewinder prototypes. Six years later, in September 1953, the missile
had its first successful test run
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