The AIM-9 Sidewinder family

[Flame2512]

I was at the National Archives recently and came across this description of how IRCCM works on the AIM-9M:

 

[MissileMan]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1469059617078525955

View: https://twitter.com/Ascii211/status/1469059617078525955

https://twitter.com/x/status/1496654823764209664

View: https://twitter.com/Ascii211/status/1496654823764209664

https://twitter.com/x/status/1501428341328564224

View: https://twitter.com/Ascii211/status/1501428341328564224

Hey everyone, Arsenio here.
I've since been working on cleaning out more of the goop and making good progress.
In addition, will be getting access to the first production AIM-9B ever and directly comparing it to a different friend's K-13 Atoll.
Currently figuring out how to get some x-ray time with the local EODs, and also booking some time at the national archives, as it's a short metro ride away for me.
Any questions, hit me with em.

 

[NMaude]

Any questions, hit me with em.

Have you been able to get access to any more of the service manuals?

 

[MissileMan]

Have you been able to get access to any more of the service manuals?

Not yet, just got panned on my most recent FOIA request for more recent 'winder stuff.
Working through building a list of docs I want to get at the archives, and picking out a scanner.
In the mean time I tracked some other hardcopies down on various sites and spent a bit of cash on buying em for digitization.

 

[Scott Kenny]

China Lake has a really interesting museum with a lot of the early Sidewinder history. They are very proud of that missile.

They should be!

Sidewinders literally started as a guidance package for 5" Zuni rockets back in the late 1940s or early 1950s, and has gone on to be probably the single most highly produced AAM ever. Sidewinders will still be in use 100 years after they were first flown. Yes, the rocket motor has been changed (several times) and the guidance has been changed (several times), but you could take the designers or people who worked on Sidewinders back in the 1950s and walk them through each update and they'd be able to follow you all the way up through the current AIM-9X block 2 or whatever they're on.

That's bragging rights!

 

[Forest Green]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1787793792822587780

View: https://x.com/AirPowerNEW1/status/1787793792822587780

 

[AN/AWW-14(V)]

Photographs of AIM-9X missile tail fins mounted on a flat plate in the test section of the Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel (UPWT), building 1251. People in the photographs include Floyd Wilcox, Chuck Thatcher and Dan Cole.

Publication date 2004

AIM-9X Fins : NASA/Langley Research Center : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Photographs of AIM-9X missile tail fins mounted on a flat plate in the test section of the Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel (UPWT), building 1251. People in the...

archive.org

 

[AN/AWW-14(V)]

AIM-9X Fins : NASA/Langley Research Center : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Photographs of AIM-9X missile tail fins mounted on a flat plate in the test section of the Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel (UPWT), building 1251. People in the...

archive.org

AIM-9X Fins : NASA/Langley Research Center : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Photographs of AIM-9X missile tail fins mounted on a flat plate in the test section of the Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel (UPWT), building 1251. People in the...

archive.org

AIM-9X Fins : NASA/Langley Research Center : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Photographs of AIM-9X missile tail fins mounted on a flat plate in the test section of the Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel (UPWT), building 1251. People in the...

archive.org

seems to be something in this from Bugatti supercars

 

[MissileMan]

Nothing too exciting, but cool anyway (с)Steve Trimble



I make picture for you clearly understand difference location ground points on missiles (all figures was shown legacy 9X):
AIM-9X and AIM-9X-2 - wing screw or wing rib
AIM-9X-3 - I think, has a features as reduced number of various small parts on the missile's surface and RAM coat
say for sure is surface without RAM-coat - Hanger Bolt(s) on legacy 9X hanger bolts are painted over!

View attachment 670913

AN/AWW-14(V), where the HECK did you get these images, I've been trawling for Sidey stuff for over a decade and I've never seen these before.

 

[sferrin]

 

[MissileMan]

I'll get higher res shots when I'm back at CLWS late this year.

 

[NMaude]

I'll get higher res shots when I'm back at CLWS late this year.

Some close up shots of the seeker electronics would be nice.

 

[MissileMan]

Some close up shots of the seeker electronics would be nice.

Yeah I'm planning on doing a full Photogrammetry run on each of them.

 

[NMaude]

Yeah I'm planning on doing a full Photogrammetry run on each of them.

Hopefully the photographs will be detailed enough to reverse engineer the electronics circuit diagrams.

 

[MissileMan]

Hopefully the photographs will be detailed enough to reverse engineer the electronics circuit diagrams.

Not even close, past the 60's they went to wirebonded custom silicon packs. I'd need curve tracers and die shots to get that RE'd.
Old though? It's fairly elementary stuff, currently working on remaking it in transistors

 

[NMaude]

It's fairly elementary stuff, currently working on remaking it in transistors

Have you photographed the circuit-boards from that AIM-9 GCU you got,, the one with the sub-miniature valves?

they went to wirebonded custom silicon packs.

If you mean analogue op-amp ICs (First applied to the AIM-9H) I do believe that mil-spec version of the μA709 (The immediate precursor to the ground-breaking industry standard μA741 op-amp IC).