AIM-9 Sidewinder

Rare card · No. 21859

The AIM-9 Sidewinder is a short-range air-to-air missile. It entered service with the United States Navy in 1956 and the Air Force in 1964, and is one of the oldest, cheapest, and most successful air-to-air missiles. Its latest variants (AIM-9X) remain standard equipment in most Western-aligned air forces. The Soviet K-13 (AA-2 "Atoll"), a reverse-engineered copy of the AIM-9B, was also widely adopted. Low-level development started in the late 1940s, emerging in the early 1950s as a guidance system for the modular Zuni rocket. This modularity allowed for the introduction of newer seekers and rocket motors, including the AIM-9C variant, which used semi-active radar homing and served as the basis of the AGM-122 Sidearm anti-radar missile. Due to the Sidewinder's infrared guidance system, the brevity code "Fox two" is used when firing the AIM-9. Originally a tail-chasing system, early models saw extensive use during the Vietnam War, but had a low success rate (8% hit rate with the AIM-9E variant...

Read on Wikipedia · Image David Monniaux modified by FOX 52, CC BY-SA 4.0