'Worlds most successful air to air missile' the hit ratio (according to the maker is .79 per missile fired!) since the original doctrine was to fire TWO per engagement, you fire two you are just about GUARANTEED a kill! I tried the simulator that Raytheon made which has a battery powered cart with a missile dummy on it (with guidance steering it), they would hand you a lit cigarette, all you had to do was stay away from it for 30 seconds in an aircraft hangar (and you would win a nice $50) last I heard with the aim-9L they had given away less than $500 in 25 years!
@@BalticaBeer by the time they got to the 9mike they had basically given it the brain of a cutting horse, it would cut corners and the cpu knows it can pull 18 G's (human can only pull 8 (in a G-suit)
@@MichaelEdelman1954 The would be skin on skin hits, expanding rod (or coil) warhead and about a 10 meter kill radius .... still the world's most successful A-to-A missile..
@@fooman2108 Too bad nothing much was explained about how SW works... How does that coil expand: in one piece or is it supposed to fragment (like Flak, spewing metal)? What about ball-bearings, like a Claymore, tearing through a plane?
As a former pilot and amateur astronomer, the most fascinating story is how infrared astronomy started. The infrared tracking head from the AIM-9 Sidewinder ended up in the hands of the astronomer and of course he immediately attached it to the telescope. And so began IR astronomy with today's James Webb Space IR Telescope
@@michaelanderson3096 It actually started with the discovery of IR radiation in the 19th century, followed by attempts to detect an IR source in the 20s and 30s of the 20th century. Real progress was achieved only with the appearance of slide state cooled detectors in the early 1960s, i.e. the appearance of the AIM-9 IR cooled detector. It is interesting that the first people who started using an IR detector on a telescope were trained as physicists and not astronomers, who were not even interested in that field at the time, since water vapor in the atmosphere greatly limits the clear IR window for useful detection. If I remember correctly, the first IR orbiting telescope/detector was launched only in the 1980s (I think it was 1983 or 84).
I started my career touching a 9X eng development asset in 1998 in Texas. Multiple decades of production later, I suspect the 9X will outlast my days until I retire. Great weapon!!
What kind of connector shell housing are used on the aim7/9 series? I have a Dale Vishay insert im trying to find a housing for. Dale Vishay - Shearoff Insert Assy PN:810AS1325-2 / PN:QX32P-SW325
I think they should have mentioned that Soviets got one that was dud imbedded to a Mig, end reverse-engineered it to their Atoll. Also the "Sidewinder growl" was not mentioned and explained, only heard in the Libyan incident.
I curious what your mindset was when writing this comment. THe documentary was very extensive but you wanted to nit pick what they didn't do. Did you write it to make yourself seem smart or were you concerned about missing information that was readily available everywhere. Also what age were you when writing that comment. Please reply.
Well done documentary. I was a mfg tech for the F-14 weapon control system. I recall a 50msec pulse to derich the engine when a Sidewinder missile was launched. The missile exhaust would stall the jet momentarily.
Very interesting. Dad worked on Sidewinder in the 50's - 60's (GE-LMED) along with Chaparral. I remember him traveling to China Lake. He and his colleagues were pretty excited when the Libyan jets were shot down.
Great documentary. My father, an old Navy Chief '44-'63, and Enterprise plankowner, always talked about the Sidewinders, even though he was running the nuclear engines. USN, tip of the spear (or trident)!
I just jumped when Wally Schirra just popped at 21:13 in this video as a Sidewinder test pilot. Google him If you never heard of him. Because you should. A little hint: do some research on how many guys flew all three, all important: Mercury, Gemini and Apollo.
Col. Robin Olds personally launched a dozen or so AIM-4 Falcons without so much as a kill, with the majority of them flying off into the sun, or not launching at all! He was so pissed, he ordered his entire squadron of F-4s rewired and re-plumbed for the AIM-9's without Washington's approval. Soon after, their kill ratio jumped up to a level that caused concern for the NVAF. The rest of the USAF soon followed suit with refitting the rest of their fighter inventory for the AIM-9, and the Falcon slipped into obscurity.
As the Chief Pilot of my unit I was 'given to CLWS to test the Snake's Sidearm-II project. The Chinook was the airframe of choice simply because there was room in the radio/comms closet for the required gear. Ant any airspeed less than medium airspeed, the rotor down wash disrupted the missile after firing and was cancelled. I was secretly happy since the system would have removed my starboard gunner, and fighter and gunship cover was better than adding another weapons system would have impaired our ability to do what were supposed to. Ever heard of a Chinook being shot up by an enemy fighter or swing wing bird? Me either. :P Excellent video. Moreso since it was produced in 91-92 and the Snake is still under wings and in weapons bays.
Ironically sidearm wasn't meant to be an air to air weapon it was an anti radiation sidewinder to kill radar guided AAA like the shilka. Have you ever heard of short range AAA being effective against helicopters?
Many of the people interviewed in that video are dead. Archival footage means that the video starts to feel like the era in which the interviews were granted.
fine documentary. back in the day when nots china lake was more like a startup than a navy facility. days gone by, but nice to reminisce. also, shows some of the leading edge of media technology by the technical information department to produce these videos. remember the source materials is circa 1950. proud nots/nwc/nawcwd alumni 1974-2011.
NOTS what is now our beloved NAVAIRSYSCOM NAWCWD (WEAPONS DIVISION) CHLK! REPRESENT!! The guy that narrates this vid. He’s so chill. The only guy I know that can show up in flip flops and cargo shorts and no one says a word.
Proud to watch my country's missile in this documentary. Unfortunately, due to many reasons and like many other technological programs, Piranha missile didn't go ahead. A salute from Brazil!
love loading them great missile to handle, and the its launcher LAU-7 fun to work on, not to fond of LAU-138. bit more of a pain in the but to work on than the 7. from an old navy AO
Oh look! We had a thrust vectoring, off bore, and even a helmet aiming system before the Soviets had one in the Mig 29?! But yet we were shocked how effective it was when the U.S Air Force evaluated it after the wall fell?! Hmmmmmmmm.
Bureaucracy, red tape, industry lobby... call what you want, these things always killed many great weapons programs for decades. I also was amazed to see they had the concept in the 50's and a proof of concept in the 70's. Amazing.
@@sloppydog4831 the reason it was passed over as we would see is because in a real life engagement the dogfight as you see it is simply not a thing that has ever existed 90% of the time the person you're attack is unaware which is why the usaf has spent it's weight in gold evening the odds in that eventuality
Going against the grain; this was disruption and innovation before the concept became buzzwords. I hope NOTS is still active as its own creature. The best missiles and smart weapons came from NOTS.
I was straining my eyes to see if I would recognize any faces in this complex docu. I grew up at China lake and wherry housing. Went to Burroughs and joined the navy at 17. What a really crazy place to raise a family.
Everybody, let’s put it into perspective. This missile was created in 1947 1950s so it’s been more than seventy years now imagine what they have now that will become the Declassified in 70 or 100 years from now makes you wonder.
Robin Olds only wanted his F4s equipped with the sidewinders for strike escort. Once got in trouble because a superior seen no Sparrows equipped on a H model, he thought they were Ds. Whoops lol
"And the secretaries who actually ran the whole place...." 1:04:36 A nice remark for the secretaries who typically were doing all the heavy work as liaisons between everyone.
@@paristo There are two groups of people, you never ever want to anger. Secretaries and Janitors, for they can make your life truly miserable; or so much easier if you pay them some respect.
If it weren't for economic pressures that force aircraft manufacturers to improve upon existing designs instead use advancements to make a new one the 747 would be long gone The B52 just so happened to be good enough at expensively fighting low intensity conflicts that it was still viable
I wish i would live in the 60s. Seems like it was a much simpler time. Guess everyone secretly wants things they cant have. Lets make thr best with what we have :)
Yeah, the Falcon was more or less a joke. But the Sparrow had it's evolution, going on to become the Standard-ARM air to ground missile that goes after search and missile guidance radar sets. But the AIM-9, heh! You can see how far they went to market the little meanie, all the way to becoming an ASAT satellite killer.
@@Nighthawke70 & yet for years I thought Hughes' Falcon the best & even puzzled about the Navy not adopting it. In 1960 Hughes even boasted of the nuclear-tipped Falcon 9. Turned out to nutting. Hughes was a fraud through & through. About another AA missile, why the US abandoned the nuclear ''Genie'' ? Although unguided it could sink a much-vaunted Sverdlovsk dreddnut. & also the Davy Crockett nuclear mortar.
@@Charlesputnam-bn9zy The GENIE was specifically designed for the F-101, F-89, f-104/106 interceptors and those were being made obsolete by the rapid advance of technology and the rampant X-Plane programs underway. The F-106 was tried with a trapeze rig, but didn't get very far beyond the testing stage. Using one of those was akin to using a sledgehammer to swat a mosquito. Sure, it was VERY satisfying, but then you had to fix the holes it created. Plus the firing safeties were primitive. PAL was not yet perfected and the arming was set when it launched. Fuzing was time delay; Imagine if your rangefinder was out of whack and you set it to minimums and it lit off. No way to get away from it! Bottom line, it was overkill, and the treaties at the time was threatening to put it out of existence.
@@Nighthawke70 Thank you for all this information. I was astonished at seeing the AAM Sidewinder proteanly turning SAM Chapparal ! In my teen days, I viewed it as heresy !
An AIM 9B or D couldn’t hit ant aircraft unless it was in straight, level 1G flight. When first used on the F-4B in Vietnam, when the MiG (and the Phantom) were in a mild 2G turn, the missile would lose lock and fly off to nowhere, and then (perhaps) swing wildly back into view and towards the target. It was not good enough for dogfighting with MiGs.
That's not true. The AIM-9D was what scored the majority of USN/USMC air-to-air kills in the Vietnam War. For 1966, it was the best air-to-air missile anyone had. By 1972, it was superceded with the AIM-9G, followed by the AIM-9H a little while later.
@@Tigershark_3082 You might feel this way from an someone’s historical point of view, but In total 452 Sidewinders were fired during the Vietnam War, resulting in a kill probability of 0.18. So 92% of the time when a pilot in SE Asia fired a sidewinder it missed the target. This is evidenced by the personal histories of pilots who flew in the war during 64-66. Source: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-9_Sidewinder
Ridgecrest CA was described by it's most famous alumis, Mark Hoppus (Blink-182 guy), as "geniuses, scientists, physicists and then just complete strung-out meth-heads". What was it like to grow up there?
I'm surprised we gave our state of the art guided missile to Taiwan, and I'm amazed one got stuck in a Chicom MiGs tail pipe. That's why you don't give your best stuff out.
I think the blame there went to the old surplus Navy VT fuses they employed on the early Sidewinders. Some were faulty to the point of premature detonation upon firing. One 5 inch shell went off not 15 feet out of the muzzle of the gun, startling the lot on the bridge. This one apparently didn't arm or activate at all!
Uhh, reminder: China had The Bomb. If an American fighter had fired on the CHICOMs, regardless of the fact that they were defending against an aerial attack on Taiwan, the fecal matter could have fissioned globally upon contact with that Chinese fan.
Still early generation. Takes time to work the problems out. All military tech goes through this process. Design, test, deploy, evaluation, redesign, deploy, evaluate......
I can't watch this video where BuOrd is bragging about how well they ran the Sidewinder program while BuAir was flailing trying to make Sparrow (and the entire US defense establishment was making an abominable mess of the Falcon); and not constantly dwell on how many sailors died because BuOrd made bad, just tremendously bad and faulty, Mk 14 torpedoes, stubbornly insisting they weren't bad and refusing to fix them for years while everyone kept painstakingly showing them how bad they were. It really seems like glass houses all around doesn't it?
You know it is possible to learn from mistakes and become better. It's clear that the lack of testing which resulted in such terrible weapons like the Mk 14, was not an issue come the 50s and 60s. China lake and other sites were in many ways a response to the old BuOrd's failings. If the guys at China lake had been around for pre-war torpedo development I'm sure we would have had the best torpedo in the world.
The torpedo problem was not confinded to US, Brits and Germans had problems with magnetic fused torpedoes at start of ww2 IT WAS more complex than initially thought.
This more a history if the social life at the facility. I was expecting the genius simplicity of the tracking system to be explained and not an engineer singing and digs at naval bureaucracy
