Armourers loading an AIM-7 Sparrow missile on the fuselage of a CF-18 Hornet aircraft with a Sparrow installed on the outboard wing pylong - 78.5 KB

AIM-7M Sparrow Air-to-air Missile

Length:	12 ft (3.66 m)
Diameter:	8 in (203 mm)
Wingspan:	3.35 ft (1.02 m)
Weight:	507 lbs (230 kg)
Warhead:	86 lbs (39 Kg) of HE
Guidance:	Semi-active radar
Range:	28 miles (45 Km)

RIM-7 Sea Falcon Missile being fired from a ship - 6.11 KB The AIM-7M Sparrow missile was first available in 1956. The AIM-7E was used in vietnam. The navy uses a surface-to-air variation of the AIM-7 named "RIM-7 Sea Sparrow". Earlier version of the Sparrow missile had a continuous rod type warhead. Once fired the interconnected steel rod inside the warhead would unfold and form a huge ring which would move and expand towards the target to cause structural damage. The present version of the AIM-7 has a fixed focus blast warhead. This fixed focus blast fragmentation warhead has a specific metal casing/charge weight ratio and the inside of the casing is notched to provide the necessary amount of shrapnel. The AIM-7M was first available in 1982 and is presently carried on the CF-18 Hornet aircraft.

During the Golf war, 25 Iraqi aircrafts were shot down with the AIM-7 Sparrow missile.

The Sparrow missile is a semi-active or "beam rider" missile. It does not transmit a radar beam like active missiles do and the missile does not guide itself from emissions from the target like passive missiles would. It utilises the radar beam emitted by the launch aircraft and compares that radar beam capted at the rear of the missile with the radar echo bouncing off the target, which is capted at the front, to guide itself. This missile can use both continuous wave or pulse duppler type radar wave.

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