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| Length: | 9.4 ft (2.87 m) |
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| Diameter: | 5 in (127 mm) |
| Wingspan: | 2.1 ft (0.64 m) |
| Weight: | 191.8 lbs (87 kg) |
| Warhead: | 25 lbs (11.4 Kg) of HE |
| Guidance: | Infrared |
| Range: | 5 miles (8 Km) |
The AIM-9M Sidewinder missile was first
available in 1956. The AIM-9M was first available in 1982. In the Canadian Air Force, the
Sidewinder used to be carried on the CF-104 (Starfighter) and the CF-5 (Freedomfighter)
aircrafts and is presently carried on the CF-18 Hornet aircraft.
AIM stands for Air Intercept Missile.
During the Gulf war, 11 Iraqi aircrafts were shot down with the AIM-9M Sidewinder missile.
The Sidewinder missile is a passive infrared missile. Therefore it will use heat to guide itself towards the target. Because infrared heat does not travel a great distance, the range is the Sidewinder is short. But what makes the Sidewinder and outstanding air-to-air weapon is that it is very efficient and is hard to evade. The electronics inside the missile is such that it is made to ignore decoy flares that the target might be dropping trying to fool the missile into chasing the flares.
Over 200,000 AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles were manufactured with no word on phasing it out....
If you have any questions on the AIM-9 Sidewinder, send me an email and I'll see what I can do......
Copyright© 1997 F. Martel. All rights reserved
http://gunplumbers.org/aim-9m.html
Last updated: 18 November 2007
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