Frederic P Miller

AIM-9 Sidewinder Frederic P Miller

Publisher Marketing: Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. The AIM-9 Sidewinder is a heat-seeking, short-range, air-to-air missile carried by fighter aircraft and recently, certain gunship helicopters. Variants and upgrades remain in active service with many air forces after five decades. When a Sidewinder missile is being launched, NATO pilots use the brevity code Fox Two in radio communication, as with all "heat-seeking" missiles. The Sidewinder is the most widely used missile in the West, with more than 110,000 missiles produced for the U. S. and 27 other nations, of which perhaps one percent have been used in combat. It has been built under license by some other nations including Sweden. The AIM-9 is one of the oldest, least expensive and most successful air-to-air missiles, with an estimated 270 kills worldwide to date. The missile was designed to be simple to upgrade. It has been said that the design goals for the original Sidewinder were to produce a reliable and effective missile with the "electronic complexity of a table model radio and the mechanical complexity of a washing machine"-goals which were well accomplished in the early missiles.