The Almost-Unbelievable True Story of the Sidewinder Missile
How the first heat-seeking missile went from an unfunded side project to a worldwide military phenomenon.
By Alex Hollings
Mar 21, 2021
The Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union ushered in one of the most dramatic arms races in history. As the two nations jockeyed for global supremacy, they posed such a dire threat to each other that deterring open conflict became a matter of survival. That meant building new and ever more capable weapons and constantly matching or offsetting any technological advantage created by the other side.
In few places throughout the conflict was that delicate balance more evident than in the Soviet Union’s efforts to reverse engineer the world’s first self-guided air-to-air weapon, America’s AIM-9 Sidewinder missile.
In 1946, U.S. Navy physicist William B. McLean had a novel idea. He and his team had been toying around with lead-sulfide proximity fuzes that were sensitive to infrared radiation. McLean reasoned that if a proximity fuze could read infrared signatures to initiate detonation, they ought to be able to track an infrared signature as well. In short: The missile would adjust course midflight to keep the target’s heat signature reflected onto a sensitive photocell, making the missile literally seek heat. There was just one problem: Designing new weapons wasn’t McLean’s job.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a35701747/sidewinder-missile-story/
