Fairey Firestreak
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The Fairey Firestreak was the first effective British air-to-air missile. It used passive infrared homing.
Development
The Firestreak was developed from 1951, its prototype Blue Jay was built by de Havilland to meet a less arduous specification than that which had led to the unsuccessful Fairey Fireflash.Firestreak had an unusual configuration, with the warhead around the exhaust tube. The actuators were in the nose, operated by a compressed air bottle in the tail, operating the tail-mounted control surfaces via pushrods. Its liquid nitrogen-cooled seeker was slaved to the aircraft's radar for lock-on, and was suitable only for tail-chase (rear-aspect) engagements. It had an infrared proximity fuzes set in two rows between the nose and the wings..
Firestreak entered service in 1958, arming English Electric Lightning, de Havilland Sea Vixen, and Gloster Javelin fighter aircraft. It was phased out in favor of the superior Hawker Siddeley Red Top from 1964 (Firestreak Mk IV), but remained in limited service until the final retirement of the Lightning in 1988, because carrying of these missiles improved Lightning's aerodynamics.
Note that this missile was manufactured under a number of different names - Fairey Firestreak, de Havilland Firestreak and Hawker Siddeley Firestreak due to the sequence of acquisition/mergers. See the Fairey Aviation article for more information.
Specifications
- Length: 3.19 m (125.5 in)
- Wingspan: 0.75 m (29.4 in)
- Diameter: 223 mm (8.75 in)
- Weight: 136 kg (300 lb)
- Speed: Mach 3
- Range: 6.4 km (4 mi)
- Guidance: rear-aspect infrared
- Warhead: 22.7 kg (50 lb) annular blast fragmentation
See also
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British Missiles Air-to-air Fireflash | Firestreak | Red Top | Skyflash Air-to-surface Surface-to-air Thunderbird | Bloodhound | Tigercat | Rapier Blowpipe | Javelin | Starburst | Starstreak Sea Slug | Sea Cat | Sea Wolf | Sea Dart Surface-to-surface Swingfire | Malkara (UK/Australia) | Vigilant Stategic and tactical nuclear
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| Airlines | Air forces | Aircraft weapons | Missiles | Timeline of aviation |
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