Sea Eagle (missile)

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The BAe Sea Eagle is a medium weight, 'fire-and-forget', sea-skimming anti-ship missile designed and built by BAe Dynamics (now MBDA) in service with the RAF and Indian Air Force.

It is designed to sink or disable ships up to the size of aircraft carriers in the face of jamming and other countermeasures including decoys.

Contents

1 History
2 Design
3 Specifications
4 Operators

4.1 UK
4.2 India
4.3 Saudi Arabia

5 Variants
6 External links
7 See also

History

Sea Eagle came from a project ("P3T") started in 1973 for a successor to the Martel missile. Design of the Sea Eagle began in 1976, with full scale development initiated in 1979. Production of the finished production weapon began in 1982, with test firings in 1984 and service introduction, the following year. The RAF Buccaneer was the first aircraft to carry a Sea Eagle in active service.

Design

Sea Eagle is powered by a paraffin-fuelled Microturbo TRI-60 turbojet and travels at speeds of Mach 0.85 (1,040 km/h, 645 mph) throughout its 110 kilometre (68 mile) range. Once launched the Sea Eagle is completely autonomous, with the flight and target seeking completely controlled by the on-board computer system which functions according to programmable options covering a large set of cruise, search and attack options. An inertial navigation system is used to give the missile an over-the-horizon capability. A radar altimeter allows the missile to fly at very low level, minimising the range at which a ship can detect it. It has an active radar target seeker.

The main wings are triangular, arranged in a cruciform configuration. Smaller wings of similar shape and configuration provide steering. The engine intake is under the fuselage - whilst carried by an aircraft this is covered by an aerodynamic fairing which is blown clear at launch. The missile is fitted with a semi armour piercing warhead.

Specifications

Wingspan : 1.2 meters (3 feet 11 inches)
Length : 4.14 meters (13 feet 7 inches)
Weight : 600 kilograms (1,320 pounds)
Warhead : 230 kilograms (510 pounds)
Speed : Mach 0.85 (645 mph)
Range : 110 kilometers (68 miles / 60 nautical miles)
Flight time : 400 seconds (6 min 40 seconds)

Operators

UK

Blackburn Buccaneer - 2 or 4 missiles (retired)
Tornado GR1B - 4 missiles (retired)
Sea Harrier - 2 missiles (retired)

India

Saudi Arabia

Tornado IDS - 2 or 4 missiles (retired)

Variants

A variant of the missile designed to be launched from ships was considered, as was a long range variant which would have had an imaging infrared seeker-head and a data link to allow the launch platform to update the missile in flight; this latter version was dubbed "Golden Eagle". Neither variant was built.

External links

http://www.flyingzone.co.uk/tornadoinfocus/12squadron.htm