AIM 9 SIDEWINDER MISSILE | How it Works with Rolleron Demo! 

I see what you did there!

Just a heads up. A prefix comes before a word and the thing after the word like AIM9L or AIM9B would be a suffix. But maybe im getting that wrong and it works differently in this context

@@yuyiko you are correct.

I think they're using inert AIM-9X like a dart to pop it instead of 11:03 or perhaps they're just bypassing the arm/detonate function. @spicy110 vid from 2021 you were a Sidewinder missile geek legit before it was cool!

They could have just used a single cannon shot surely. Or even a 📌

Not live ammunition but a similar system still exists on Typhoons. Part of the ACS (Weapons system) testing involves SRAAM tests involving the cooling unit and communications in the pylon. After setting up the test you have to time that the cooling unit gets down to temp within a certain timeframe (checking for unit serviceability and leaks) and then the databus signal correctly indicates that it’s ‘armed’ and ready. The final part of the test is checking the cockpit symbology which involves the ‘growling’ tone in the headset - quite possibly the same things you’d have tested on the live stuff fitted during your Ops.

@@DaveMurphyEngineer Yes quite probably, it makes you ‘twitch’ when you realise you’re the target!! L OL

@@Marie579 Thankfully I’ve never tested live munitions, but in all the testing I had to do the growling noise was generated by test boxes plugged into the Typhoon, replicating all the signals that would be generated by a live munition when fitted.

@@DaveMurphyEngineer The thing that got me was you could see the eye in the sidewinder following your movements and it increased in tone as it’s ‘Locked on ‘ LOL

@@Marie579 As the Lima was the first Aim-9 to be 'All-Aspect', it makes sense that it would be able to detect longer wavelength IR outside of the traditional Mid-IR 4μm window, with the next usable atmospheric window starting at 8μm where the human body has an appreciable thermal output. I still find it amazing that, even with cryogenic sensor cooling, the Lima was sensitive enough to pick out the bit of exposed human skin temperature with the entire space around it also being quite warm and emissive as well.

Thank you!! Haha it's a nightmare as I was planning in making this and then curious droids video blew the other one up.

Same. The old video came up in my feed, and then I clicked on this from here.

And a year later the same thing for me..

It's still happening. 😁

yup, that's exactly how I got here.

Yes totally makes sense I was having a bit of a dumb moment as I was stuck on a construction thought, I should have explained more of my thinking. I realised if they are directly connected to each other by say a shaft, they could not be in the same alignment as you cann not have two shafts cross in the same space. So knowing they must be independent I started to wonder if that was also a added benefit. As you clearly point out it wouldn't be at all haha 🙂👍

@@spicy110 well the two shafts can cross, one just has a U shaped dip in it so it goes below the other shaft but all 4 ends (the canard pivot points) are perpendicular on the same line.

The shoulder fired Stinger which is also an infrared homing missle does in fact rotate during flight so I wonder how they compensate for the spinning detector in that particuler version.

The Redye and stinger use the same sensor. Sidewinders had an angle mirror that rotated to scan, the redeye rotates the entire missile with a fixed sensor to make it smaller. Redeye and stinger have a gyro and some simple solid state logic to apply connections at the right angle.

@@stephenfowler4115 since the values are calculated locally roll doesnt matter.

Aye this is the correct answer!

Yes. the lowest frequency is the fundamental one to use. All the others are harmonic multiples of the fundamental. Also, as a crosscheck, search for & listen to a 6000 Hz tone. You'll notice it'll be about the same pitch. As a side note, most people have a hard time really hearing a 15,000 Hz sound.

please look at the R3 missile and the Aim9B which is what was copied

ayyy I though no one would get that, I am a patreon of C&R 🙂

weapons troop?

Like he hd a choice? Was he supposed to eject and drown instead? What a stupid post...

He might not have even known it was there, depending on what part of the plane it hit. Probably felt the impact but thought it was just shrapnel.

Seriously? What else was he gonna do, cry? Fly the plane into the nearest mountain peak? F the chinese (communist part, specifically). As far as being steely-eyed; what he wasn't, was a whiny-assed, limp-wristed liberal.

almost accurate I believe it was the C model that was radar guided but the all aspect tracking came from the heat generated by friction at high speeds

@@chillyboi6597 Yes, all-aspect capability came IIRC on the 9L, due to general improvements in the seeker design and sensitivity. Needed less of a contrast to gain a lock. This was decades before the 9X introduced imaging IR seekers to the Sidewinder family.

but this is the new one! its been so hard to get people to see this better version vs. the 6 yr old one 🙂

*maus

Glad you enjoyed it!

And to think they span at over 100k on the missile!

Yes. You can also see that when the air is taken away and it slows down. There is only one peak then moving through 5000+Hz.

Aim9C is SARH like an Aim7

AIM-9X have all the stabilization down with the trust vectoring.

sandblast.

Yes but we also know they have a contrast sensor on with the ir sensor. Allowing it to track cold targets

Worked on the FMS variant of the AIM-9H.

To my understanding they are held still in flight by 2 bands that pop off at launch allowing the wheels to spin.

Mark a few different fins with different colours and you will get a much more reliable idea of the rpm. I agree 60k rpm sounds to high but not impossible, just from the sound and listening to a lot of things spinning I would say 30k odd sounds about right.

I did try to film it at the fastest I could manage 240 fps and its a blur before it even gets going.

@@spicy110 It might be a blur because you're not filming with enough light? If you film in bright direct sunlight, it will only have to collect light for a tiny fraction of that 1/240 seconds. If it's too dark, it'll use the whole frame time. Even with 240fps, you can still theoretically record up to 14,400 rpm if you increase the speed gradually and make sure you don't skip to a multiple of that.

For what it's worth I've seen multiple quotes of operating speeds in excess of 300k rpm. At an airspeed of over Mach 2.5 ...not as crazy as it first sounds.

You need to just get a tachometer. They are cheap on ebay. The visual kind. The problem with sound is above 24khz you get nyquist foldover, I could hear it in the video. Your audio trick is unreliable with high RPM because audio sampling is too slow.

that was a Alan head and no that thing is not coming out, I did mention it....I think

Thanks 👍

cant be defeated by stealth technology cant hide the engine heat

Let's do some math. The wheel diameter looks something like 10 cm. Circumference is around 30 cm. The fin-speed of the wheel will be less than the airspeed of the missile. Let's take the 2000 km/hr, which boils down to 555 m/s Divide the 555 by 0.3 and you have the rps: 1850 rps or 110.000 rpm More testing required I guess.

@@frutt5k The rolleron has a pair of airfoils standing vertically in front of the wheel. They are shaped in a way that increases the velocity of the airflow, just like a venturi does. The top speed of any AIM-9 is still classified, but it exceeds Mach 3, which is roughly 1,932 knots, or 2,223 mph. Let's assume that the top speed of the missile, plus the venturi effect, comes out to 2,500 mph. The wheel measures 3" in diameter, giving us a circumference of 9.42". The math shows 280,000 rpm, assuming the tip speed of the wheel is at 2,500 mph. An air compressor at 90psi will not come close to producing a Mach 3 air stream. Just sayin'. I would guess that smeggyhead1 is pretty close with his 16,000+ rpm.

@@throngcleaver Your guess is as good as mine. We're just supposing.

@@frutt5k I have a rolleron I bought on eBay and actually measured the wheel. Your assumption of 10cm is 33% larger than the true diameter. A smaller wheel would turn at a higher RPM than a larger one, based on the outer diameter velocity being the same. 2,000 kph is only Mach 1.67. I know that the published number for the speed of an AIM-9 is Mach 2.5+. I also know that the much older AIM-4 series of missiles claimed as much as Mach 4 for a top speed, so I chose 2,500mph because it falls roughly halfway between Mach 3 and Mach 4. I don't make guesses without having factual information from which to base them on.

@@throngcleaver Looking at how many decimals you use I come to the conclusion that you should not do too many calculations of this kind.

Yes, most people. Most people are not 3 metres tall.

@@stevenkelby2169 Looks like my edit forgot to save but might as well keep it at this point!

@@frogsshadow4189 Nah leave it, it's funny ☺ 🍻

I just had a thought and checked them with a magnet, and they strongly attract a magnet so they must be a steel based alloy.

Ron Westrum’s book on the Sidewinder is a pretty basic work on the AIM-9, the AGM-87 FOCUS, and the AGM-122 SIDEARM.

To my understanding the wheels are held in place with 2 bands in flight that pop off at launch, The whole surface is held by the tabs but not the wheel.

no, i am told they were wired in place and would release on launch.

Apart from it attracts a magnet.

@@spicy110 Ferritic stainless steel perhaps?

At 17:28 you can see that it works to counter roll. He rolls the fin up in the frame, the aileron moves up as well, which would cause an aerodynamic force opposite to the force he introduced. Yaw and pitch are controlled with the canards on these.

@@dirkmohrmann8960 Exactly. It works like a sort of automatic trim tab

Can you link me that video please

@@spicy110 ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dUBw4cg_N6w.html it's in Mandarin tho. The comment explaining this was made by Ignacio Lavan (In mandarin). If you need help translating his words just let me know.

I would agree as it tracks far better.

It will not come undone, I have tried.

I talk about that at 4:40

The whole unit is called a rolleron, the wheel would be a gyro wheel. I believe the missile have bands around the fins that hold all the wheels in place in flight but pop off at launch. 🙂

@@spicy110 Thanks! I knew the entire mechanism was called a rolleron. It was the spinning wheel itself that I didn't know. I'm aware of some of the interesting nomenclature the military comes up with when it comes to naming things. I was imagining something along the lines of: Rotor, High Speed, Gyro, Air Driven, Passive Stability Unit, Unfinished, DO NOT PAINT The band that comes off at launch brings me back to that initial stability issue. Obviously, it works, for the missile to be as successful as it is, for as long as it has. Thanks again for the quick response, and the great videos. Cheers

If the rollerons function as indicated in their patent listing, they spin throughout the flight. The locking tabs at the back appear to disengage under the g-shock of launch. The bearings are probably over engineered to allow for wear.

@@martindinner3621 The tabs(bands) at the back hold the wheel in place during flight. They unlock during launch allowing the wheel to spin. That prevents unnecessary wear on the bearings

I'm pretty sure the gyros only spin at launch. Allowing them to spin during flight would create more drag than keeping them stationary (granted, a small amount of drag relative to the plane, but every little bit counts). I know this sounds counterintuitive, and not knowing better, I would guess that allowing them to move would lead to less drag, but as I understand it, if it spins then the air is doing work, while if it doesn't spin the air is not doing work. On the other hand, fighter jets have a lot of things that cause drag, and they are very non-airplanelike in many ways. If you apply enough power you can make anything fly. The fact that there is a band AND a lock seems to argue for them not spinning as well.

The thing is the scratches on it have never oxidised.

@@spicy110 the texture is as cast. It won't really oxidize more unless it's heated. Leaving it rough as cast may have a secondary aerodynamic purpose, but mainly it's cheaper not to finish it anyway.

ok I am with you!

Its aircraft aluminum.

I just had a thought and checked them with a magnet, and they strongly attract a magnet so they must be a steel based alloy.

...the interial lock should open in the event that the missile begins to spin. the flywheels in the rollerons are already spun-up in flight and keep the sidewinder stable during launch. I don't know the exact parameters to unlock the rolleron, but it's at more inertia than the missile experiences on the airplane's wingtip hardpoint.

@@TristanMorrow "I don't know the exact parameters to unlock the rolleron, but it's at more inertia than the missile experiences on the airplane's wingtip hardpoint." Probably few do know and probably that value has been 'refined' over time. Thank you!

There was one exception. The AIM-9C was radar guided.

There was a Semi Active Radar Homing (SARH) version and a Passive Radar guided version for attacking radars and SAM sites like the HARM missile but with much shorter range. It served in the USMC on Harriers and helicopters...

@@nonyabuziness5082 That anti-radiation one was the AGM-122 SideARM, fwiw.

"One of the main difference with the newer models (Aim9x) is it uses an off bore heat seeker" The seekers always had gimbals on them, and could do some amount of off-boresight launching for a long while, what makes the AIM-9X special is a bit more than that. The traditional way to launch these would be to either have the missile's seeker boresighted (looking forwards), the pilot would put the target in the sights, listen whether the missile was recognizing the heat signature (the growl made by the seeker would intensify and usually go up in pitch), and if so could then uncage the seeker, which would follow the target even if it was no-longer under the sight. So you could lock while boresighted, then fire slightly off-boresight, within the gimbal limits (if you were still within gimbal limits, but near them, it could well lose lock during the initial acceleration, so was best to be pretty centered). Later on the seeker could also be slaved to the radar, so if you had a radar lock on a target, the radar could tell the Sidewinder where to look, and then lock on. This also gave limited off-boresight capability. The AIM-9X changed the game in many ways, being the first Sidewinder model to feature an imaging IR sensor instead of a "normal" IR sensor (similar to the difference between a light sensor and a camera), which means it can also recognize shapes and sizes, rather than "just" intensity and contrast etc. (helps a lot with countermeasure resistance), and off course as mentioned increased the gimbal capabilities and IIRC the FOV a bit as well. One of the biggest upgrades though that really enabled the high off-boresight shots was the integration to the helmet mounted displays/sights, which meant the pilot can just look at the target and the missile's seeker follows their gaze. The pilot can look more off to the sides and up than the radar can, after all. =) NOTE: This was a new capability for the US military in the 2000s, but certainly not a new capability in the world. The first helmet mounted sights that could be used to lock a heat-seeker to an off-boresight target were fielded by South Africa starting in the mid-late 60s, using the Armscor V3A missile, and the Soviets had them as well on the MiG-29 and Su-27, with the R-73 missile. These couldn't quite launch as far off of boresight as the AIM-9X can, but we're still talking around 40° off the centerline of the missile. Later block upgrades to the AIM-9X also add even more fancy things, like Lock-On After Launch (LOAL) capability, meaning the missile doesn't have to be locked on the target when it's launched, it can find it later. Basically this enables maneuvers like the datalink telling the missile "there's a target behind the plane", the missile launches, turns around, and starts looking for the target in the area where the datalink said there should be one. This kind of launch has been officially demonstrated with at least some European missiles used by the Rafale fighter jet, and possibly some Israeli Python ones, but not with Sidewinders AFAIK.

So it was not because it tracks IR like a Sidewinder that is a Pit Viper so called for its IR receptors pours on its snout?

Oh dose Titanium do it alone? I thought it had to be a mix of Titanium and nickel.

No

@@nonyabuziness5082 Yes it could, but it would have to be either sub-merged or connected via an actuator to a vane in the water. The same principle could stop a car rolling too.

@@biggerbang1293 No because a ship has to much mass and the force pressing against it is exponentially higher as well as water can not be compressed like air can.. If you tried to use this as an anti roll device on a ship in the ocean it would fail. However it might work for a large airship like a Zeppelin or a Blimp...

I know a little about US law and I can not see how you would not be allowed, However! That is not legal advise! haha

Same things yes, but I got these over 9 yrs ago.

@@spicy110 Lol I just saw his video and said he got them from someone. RU-vid recommended your video and i noticed same 2 missile parts and wondered! was trying to compare SN and markings but you show a different side of the blade than he did.

Makes sense it seemed to track way better but I only saw that in editing. 🙂