The AIM-9 Sidewinder family

aonestudio said:
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
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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 said:
Have you been able to get access to any more of the service manuals?
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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.
 
BillRo said:
China Lake has a really interesting museum with a lot of the early Sidewinder history. They are very proud of that missile.
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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!
 
1717955841968.png

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

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
 
1717955922567.png

1717955943485.png

1717955963936.png

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
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
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

1717956384896.png
seems to be something in this from Bugatti supercars
 
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AN/AWW-14(V) said:
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
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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.
 
NMaude said:
Hopefully the photographs will be detailed enough to reverse engineer the electronics circuit diagrams.
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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
 
MissileMan said:
It's fairly elementary stuff, currently working on remaking it in transistors
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Have you photographed the circuit-boards from that AIM-9 GCU you got,, the one with the sub-miniature valves?

MissileMan said:
they went to wirebonded custom silicon packs.
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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).
 
Atomic Coyote said:
Didn't the USAF never operate the AIM-9D, only the -9E?
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No but it wasn't for a lack of trying by Col. Robin Olds after his disgust at the performance of the AIM-4D, he wanted to use them (He was able to get his F-4Ds equipped with spare AIM-9 wiring harnesses) but while he could've got AIM-9Ds he wasn't able to secure the USN launch-rails (They were equipped with internal GN2 bottles for cooling the AIM-9D/G seeker-heads) due to bureaucratic bullshit (I strongly suspect that USAF logistics officers were being difficult).
 
Atomic Coyote said:
There's some museum liquidating their collection and they have an item listed as a "USAF AIM-9D"; https://www.northstateauctions.com/auction/816/item/usaf-aim-9d-missile-177044

Didn't the USAF never operate the AIM-9D, only the -9E?

In any case, based on the nonexistent seeker head and this pic;



I'm guessing it's some kind of training round.
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No that's something worse.
It's a bastardization bodge of static fins on the front of what appears to be a weirder motor. It's wrong in a lot of ways and matches no stack I am familiar with.
 
MissileMan said:
No that's something worse.
It's a bastardization bodge of static fins on the front of what appears to be a weirder motor. It's wrong in a lot of ways and matches no stack I am familiar with.
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The nose is really weird too. Seems like a proximity fuze but the height of burst range is huge, like nuclear weapon big.
 
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NMaude said:
How's the photogrammetry run going?
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Pending movement of the cased snakes outside the wire, it's extensively difficult to get on-base and not worth the pain for all involved unless there's something special in the works. Working on getting permission to have a special access day at the museum for documentation where cases are removed and it's going to be just me and a small cadre of goblins to do the work and research.
 

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