The Bureau of Aeronautics believed that if the Navy’s fighters were going to be burdened with a large missile, it needed to be able to hit a large, nonmaneuvering bomber from as far away as possible. ![]() Finally, in initial design projects, physical limitations on electronics and control surfaces made any proposed infrared weapon just as heavy as its radar-guided counterpart. Second, tests in the 1940s had shown that infrared technology had difficulty tracking airborne targets due to issues with lens optics and reflection. First, the need for visual acquisition seemed to provide only limited benefits when compared to cannons. Infrared technology was considered, but after a very brief flirtation with the concept it was discarded for several reasons. Continuing with technology development that had begun in the late 1940s, the Navy focused instead on a large, radar-guided weapon. What neither bureau desired was a heat-seeking missile. It was clear to the Bureaus of Ordnance and Aeronautics that if aircraft carriers were to survive, something had to be done. ![]() naval leaders to believe that the era of the cannon-armed fighter was rapidly drawing to a close. In addition, perceived advancements in Russian bomber technology prompted U.S. pilots’ training had allowed them to survive and also claim several kills in a handful of encounters, but the Navy was under no illusion as to the airframes’ relative abilities. Navy’s primary fighter, the Grumman F9F Panther, had been completely outclassed by North Korea’s MiG-15. This fear was further exacerbated by the events of the Korean War (1950–53). Like so many aerial weapons of the 1950s, the impetus for the AIM-9 Sidewinder stemmed from the threat of the atomic bomb. Navy’s supercarriers, and the venerable Boeing B-52 Stratofortress bomber as a vital component of American military power and ultimate victory during the “long twilight struggle” of 1947–91. 2 Given this, the AIM-9 deserves to be as respected as the United Kingdom’s ubiquitous Royal Ordnance L7 105mm tank cannon, the U.S. Whether hanging from North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies’ aircraft as part of the alliance’s deterrence posture or being employed in direct military action, the Sidewinder greatly enhanced the West’s ability to apply airpower as a counterpoint to the Communist Bloc’s numerical advantages from 1958 to 1991. In what was fundamentally its first operational test, the Air Intercept Missile (AIM)-9 Sidewinder began what would be a long, distinguished career serving the West during the Cold War, waged between the Soviet Union-led Eastern Bloc and the United States-led Western Bloc. At least four and possibly as many as six MiG-17s were quickly dispatched, with the remainder diving away back toward the Chinese mainland. To what was likely the Communist pilots’ horror, these rockets immediately began to curve and pursue several MiG-17s with unerring accuracy. From a little more than a mile away, several F-86s began firing what appeared to be rockets from under their wings at a group of MiG-17s. ![]() Rather than diving away toward home in an attempt to disengage, however, the F-86s pitched upward toward the MiG-17s that had just passed overhead. Loitering at high altitude until they assumed the F-86s to be low on fuel, the MiG-17s descended to a couple thousand feet above their prey. Able to fly faster and higher than the F-86s, the MiG-17 pilots believed that the initiative rested solely in their hands, based on several weeks of previous experience. As had been the case since the start of the conflict over Quemoy and the Matsu Islands, located just off the coast of mainland China, the MiG-17s were seeking to provoke a response by Nationalist Chinese North American F-86 Sabre fighters. On 22 September 1958, during the height of the 1958 Formosa Crisis, a group of 20 Communist Chinese Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17 fighter aircraft engaged in a sweep into Nationalist Chinese airspace. Keywords: Sidewinder, AIM-9, heat-seeking missile, air-to-air combat, United States Navy, United States Air Force, Naval Ordnance Test Station China Lake Cold War-era military technology and one of the nation’s greatest military investments. As such, it deserves to be recognized as a key component of the U.S. allies to seize air superiority during combat operations, the Sidewinder represents a ubiquitous element of airpower for Western interests. national security interests, deterring potential Eastern Bloc aggression in Europe, or allowing U.S. ![]() Whether destroying Communist aircraft to facilitate U.S. Abstract: During the Cold War, the simplicity of the Air Intercept Missile (AIM)-9 Sidewinder, as well as its potential for growth, allowed it to continually adapt to the changing times.
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