A short thread on a less appreciated part of air-to-air missiles, the launchers. In this case, the LAU-7/A launcher for the AIM-9, as applied to the D/G/H. 🧵 LAU-7/A had everything you needed for an AIM-9D. A power supply, a retaining assembly, fire control system tie-ins, a tone generator, safety devices, and most importantly, compressed gas.

In 1958, the US began to search for an interceptor capable of shooting down bombers up to 100 nautical miles away. This eventually led to the F6D Missileer system program, built around an already-designed long-range missile.
This was the Bendix XAAM-N-10 Eagle.🧵 Admin note: this is the first of the Eagle/APQ-81 threads, which will cover this missile and the radar and the F6D they were all supposed to go on. This will tie into the ASG-18/GAR-9/AIM-47 Falcon thread (much) later. You'll see.😉

In 1960, the Broad Jump program to upgrade the US Air Force's newest interceptor's radar, the F-106's MA-1 Automatic Weapon Control System, began. This would be a notable overhaul and improvement of the MA-1 system, giving it exceptional Electronic Protection capabilities. The first systems added under Broad Jump were anti-chaff devices. One of these such devices was the leading/trailing edge range gate tracker. Normally a range gate operates as an evenly split gate, as described below.

A short thread on a poorly understood AIM-9 variant, the AIM-9B FGW.2, or in US nomenclature, AIM-9F. This was a German improvement program for the AIM-9B that entered service in 1969. (9F on the right) 🧵 The 9F was a license-produced variant of the Sidewinder, designed to improve the seeker performance and reliability of the normal 9B. It did so in three ways: optical filtering, Carbon Dioxide cooling, and solid-state electronics.

Moctezuma was also fascinated by the Spaniards and wanted to either entice them to stay or find a way to entrap them. He was incredibly powerful, and the power dynamics between Moctezuma and Cortes's party have been misrepresented since day one. Short 🧵

https://twitter.com/SonnyBunch/status/1784978607938457776

Ignoring the fact that Cortes wasn't even really in charge of his own party, people DID try to kill him at first. The Tlaxcalteca, upon spotting the party of Totonacs and Spaniards heading by them, attacked. After over two weeks, they realized that making an alliance was better.

In 1943, the US Navy deployed their first single-seat night fighters. These were F6F-3 Hellcats, modified to carry the AN/APS-4 X-band airborne search and gunnery-aiding radar. It was rapidly replaced by the APS-6, an improved system. A short thread on the functions of APS-6. 🧵 Sorry in advance for the poor scan quality. I cannot find a better copy of this document publicly available, nor any other documents that display the radar displays in different modes. I will use some screenshots from when the scan quality is too poor.ibiblio.org

The AIM-4, Pk, and Hit to Kill, or why the AIM-4 was, in my opinion, the deadliest air-to-air missile the US had in the '60s.

A short thread on why the hit-to-kill method employed by the AIM-4 Falcon was more effective than the influence fuzes of its contemporaries.🧵 The best place to start is with missile development status in 1951. Thanks again to @MassiasThanos for finding this document (ADA8001650 p.158).
At the time, the relative effectiveness of various methods for warhead kill was unknown. As such, different methods were explored.

F-8's radar controls: A short thread on why on earth the early F-8's radar controls were so bad. Our story actually starts with the F2H-3, the night fighter version of the F2H. In the F2H-3, the radar was controlled by a joystick and a range thumbwheel.

"Why you can trust SCMP" You can't. This is mostly hot air.
A short, less-technical thread about this article. The first problem is that I cannot find a study that matches this description and date. I did look, but I came up empty-handed.
Xie Junwei, though, is a real person who does relevant research at "Air and Missile Defense College, Air Force Engineering University".

AAM-N-3 started life sometime in the early 1950s as a replacement for the beam-riding AAM-N-2 Sparrow I, which proved to be wholly inadequate. It featured an aerodynamic redesign, and, more importantly, an active radar homing seeker.

Sparrow II: the odd one out. 🧵 Developed by Sperry-Douglas, like the first one, the second Sparrow was primarily intended to provide a better guidance system to allow for successful intercepts of maneuvering targets, or from other angles besides head or side on.

It's about time I re-did my AIM-4 thread on this account. The AIM-4 family, despite their poor reputation, were, in reality, very advanced missiles, despite starting life as the U.S.A.F's first operational air-to-air self-guided missile (it's also my favorite missile family).🧵 There are three major varieties of AIM-4. First, the GAR-1, the first airframe design, the GAR-1C, the second airframe design, and the GAR-3/4, the third major revision to the design. These all were designed to serve on different interceptors. (GAR-1/-1D/-3A&-4A)

HAVE DASH II, AARGM-ER, and the future of American long-range air-to-air missiles:
This is going to be an unusual thread for me, completely based on speculation and some basic knowledge about the direction of experimental programs and the goals of JATM.
AARGM-ER pictured. This is a topic I've been giving some limited thought to for a very long time, but only recently formed an opinion on. The short version is that I think JATM will use a similar airframe to AARGM-ER, with some optimizations for maneuverability.

Okay, well, I can't come up with any good ideas for an April Fools bit so you get a thread of some of my favorite bad/questionable missiles/missile ideas. Will update it as the day goes on if I can think of any I missed. FIRST ONE:
Diamondback. This was described in literature as a "Nuclear Sidewinder". This is a bit silly, as it shared nothing with the real Sidewinder. 12" in diameter, it packed a nuclear warhead, likely W54 derived, with a 750t TNT equivalent yield.

Little bit of F2H-4 cockpit ergonomics as compared to the F-86K, the gun-armed Sabre Dog. These both used the same Hughes MG-4 fire control system, set up for the M24A1 or AN/M3 20mm cannon, but the F2H-4's radar controls were laid out in a much better manner. Short🧵

On both aircraft, a modified Sperry A-4 gyro lead computing gunsight was used in combination with range information provided by the radar to provide an accurate aiming point for the pilot.

In 1969, work that started in the mid-60s on giving AIM-9D off-boresight capabilities bore fruit with the introduction of AIM-9G.
At the same time, a separate program on the solid-state Sidewinder began. This would culminate in the AIM-9H, the ultimate rear-aspect Sidewinder.🧵 Since the last thread did poorly, I'm trying something different by quoting my last thread in this second post.

https://x.com/heatloss1986/status/1762019448955842709

ERINT, or Extended Range Interceptor, was a Ling-Temco-Vought product designed to provide a drop-in anti-tactical-missile (ATM, referring to both ballistic and maneuvering targets) capability to the Patriot air defense system. This would become PAC-3. 🧵 This will be a short overview of publicly available information on the system.

An unusual consideration in monolithic detector infrared missiles is that of internal reflection. In the development of AIM-9L, this was a problem that needed to be solved. A short thread.

To increase detection range and performance, the signal-to-noise ratio had to be reduced. The indium antimonide detector had to be made more pure, of course, but there were other considerations.

In Vietnam, high loss rates in Wild Weasel SEAD missions led to the Air Force showing interest in a modified Teledyne Ryan Model 147 Lightning Bug for high-risk missions. This would become the BGM-34 (Ryan Model 234) series. 🧵 I don't know a ton about it, nor is there much information, but I'll try to cover it the best I can.

As I've covered in the past, the AN/ASG-14 Radar Fire Control System of the early model F-104s was primarily designed to bring the pilot toward his target in a very simple and easy-to-understand manner. However, a friend provided me with some more information on its origins. 🧵 Special shoutout to Katherine, who doesn't use Twitter, whom I feel I have to acknowledge for providing me with one of the documents I'm referencing today. (Now send me volume 4, dammit)

The AIM-9L was an incomplete product when it entered service. It was intended to contain flare rejection logic, be fully digital, and have high sensitivity, but these requirements would have to wait until 9M. The Brits would take it upon themselves to modify 9L to increase range. How did they accomplish that? By removing the "chirp tone" that provided the pilot with an audible positive confirmation of lock-on. The threshold for the chirp tone generation was far higher than the detection threshold. This left the only indication of a lock as hud symbology.

A thread on Honeywell's VTAS: the world's first operational helmet-mounted cueing system, entering service in 1969. I will cover the program's origin, the function of VTAS, and the differences between VTAS I and II for now. Much of this story begins in 1968 with the Ault Report. At the time, the F-4 was limited in its ability to launch missiles to radar boresight only or a full fire control system track.