Skyflash
Encyclopedia
British Aerospace
British Aerospace plc was a UK aircraft, munitions and defence-systems manufacturer. Its head office was in the Warwick House in the Farnborough Aerospace Centre in Farnborough, Hampshire...
Skyflash was a medium-range semi-active radar homing
Semi-active radar homing
Semi-active radar homing, or SARH, is a common type of missile guidance system, perhaps the most common type for longer-range air-to-air and surface-to-air missile systems. The name refers to the fact that the missile itself is only a passive detector of a radar signal – provided by an external ...
air-to-air missile
Air-to-air missile
An air-to-air missile is a missile fired from an aircraft for the purpose of destroying another aircraft. AAMs are typically powered by one or more rocket motors, usually solid fuelled but sometimes liquid fuelled...
derived from the US AIM-7 Sparrow
AIM-7 Sparrow
The AIM-7 Sparrow is an American, medium-range semi-active radar homing air-to-air missile operated by the United States Air Force, United States Navy and United States Marine Corps, as well as various allied air forces and navies. Sparrow and its derivatives were the West's principal beyond visual...
missile and carried by Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
F-4 Phantoms and Tornado F3s
Panavia Tornado ADV
The Panavia Tornado Air Defence Variant is a long-range, twin-engine interceptor version of the swing-wing Panavia Tornado. The aircraft's first flight was on 27 October 1979, and it entered service in 1986. It was retired on 22 March 2011 by the Royal Air Forceand is now only in service with the...
, Italian Aeronautica Militare
Italian Air Force
The Italian Air Force has gone under different names in different periods:*Regia Aeronautica , from 1923 to June 1946*Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana, the air force of Italian Social Republic during World War II...
and Royal Saudi Air Force
Royal Saudi Air Force
The Royal Saudi Air Force , is the aviation branch of the Saudi Arabian armed forces. The RSAF has developed from a largely defensive military force into one with an advanced offensive capability...
Tornados and Swedish Flygvapnet
Swedish Air Force
The Swedish Air Force is the air force branch of the Swedish Armed Forces.-History:The Swedish Air Force was created on July 1, 1926 when the aircraft units of the Army and Navy were merged. Because of the escalating international tension during the 1930s the Air Force was reorganized and expanded...
Viggens. The missile was replaced by the more capable AMRAAM.
History
Skyflash came out of a British plan to develop an inverse monopulse seeker for the Sparrow AIM-7E-2 by GEC and the RAE at the end of the 1960s. Having shown this was feasible Air Staff Requirement 1219 was issued in January 1972, with the project code XJ.521. The contractors were Hawker Siddeley and Marconi Space and Defence Systems (the renamed GEC guided weapons division) . Major changes from the Sparrow were the addition of a Marconi semi-active inverse monopulse radar seeker, improved electronics, adapted control surfaces and a Thorn EMIThorn EMI
Thorn EMI was a major British company involved in consumer electronics, music, defence and retail. Created in October 1979 when Thorn Electrical Industries merged with EMI, it was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but it demerged again in...
active radar fuze
Fuze
Fuze Beverage, commercially referred to as just Fuze , is a manufacturer of teas and non-carbonated fruit drinks enriched with vitamins. Currently the brand consists of five vitamin-infused lines: Slenderize, Refresh, Tea, Defensify, and Vitalize...
. The rocket motors used were the Bristol Aerojet
Bristol Aerojet
Bristol Aerojet was a joint venture between the Bristol Aeroplane Company of the United Kingdom and Aerojet General of the US began in 1959.Bristol converted one of its wartime shadow factories into a rocket manufacturing plant in 1956....
Mk 52 mod 2 and the Rocketdyne
Rocketdyne
Rocketdyne was a Rocket engine design and production company headquartered in Canoga Park, California, United States. The company was related to North American Aviation for most of its history. NAA merged with Rockwell International, which was then bought by Boeing in December, 1996...
Mk 38 mod 4 rocket motor; the latest is the Aerojet Hoopoe.
Tests of the resulting missile showed it could function successfully in hostile Electronic Countermeasures (ECM) environments and could engage targets under a wide variety of conditions. It could be launched from as low as 100 m to attack a high-altitude target or launched at high level to engage a target flying as low as 75 m. The missile entered service on the F-4 Phantom II
F-4 Phantom II
The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II is a tandem two-seat, twin-engined, all-weather, long-range supersonic jet interceptor fighter/fighter-bomber originally developed for the United States Navy by McDonnell Aircraft. It first entered service in 1960 with the U.S. Navy. Proving highly adaptable,...
in 1978 as what was later called the 3000 Pre TEMP series (Tornado Embodied Modification Package).
In 1985, these aircraft were replaced with the Panavia Tornado ADV
Panavia Tornado ADV
The Panavia Tornado Air Defence Variant is a long-range, twin-engine interceptor version of the swing-wing Panavia Tornado. The aircraft's first flight was on 27 October 1979, and it entered service in 1986. It was retired on 22 March 2011 by the Royal Air Forceand is now only in service with the...
. Both the Phantom and the ADV carry the Skyflash in semi-recessed wells on the aircraft's underbelly to reduce drag. In the ADV, however, Frazer-Nash hydraulic trapezes project the missile out into the slipstream prior to motor ignition. This widens the missile's firing envelope by ensuring that the launch is not affected by turbulence from the fuselage. Skyflash was therefore converted to the 5000 TEMP series to incorporate the Fraser-Nash recesses in the body of the missile, Launch Attitude Control electronics in the autopilot section and improved wing surfaces. The Tornado-Skyflash combination became operational in 1987 with the formation of the first Tornado F.3 squadron .
From 1988 a further modification (6000 series) nicknamed "SuperTEMP" included the Hoopoe rocket motor to change the missile's flight profile from boost-and-glide (with a 4-second burn) to boost-sustain-glide (7-second burn), increasing its range and maneuverability.
In RAF service the missiles are usually carried in conjunction with four short-range air-to-air missiles, either AIM-9 Sidewinder
AIM-9 Sidewinder
The AIM-9 Sidewinder is a heat-seeking, short-range, air-to-air missile carried mostly by fighter aircraft and recently, certain gunship helicopters. The missile entered service with United States Air Force in the early 1950s, and variants and upgrades remain in active service with many air forces...
s or ASRAAMs.
A version with an active Thomson CSF
Thales Group
The Thales Group is a French electronics company delivering information systems and services for the aerospace, defense, transportation and security markets...
-developed radar seeker and intertial mid-course update capability, Skyflash Mk 2 (called Active Skyflash), was proposed for both the RAF and Sweden . British interest ended with the 1981 Defence Review ; BAe kept the proposal around until the early '90s but there were no buyers.
Further advanced Sky Flash derivatives were studied under the code name S225X , and these studies became the basis for the MBDA Meteor
MBDA Meteor
Meteor is an active radar guided beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile being developed by MBDA. It is to equip the Eurofighter Typhoons of the UK's Royal Air Force , Germany's Luftwaffe, Spain's Ejército del Aire and Italy's Aeronautica Militare Italiana, the British and Italian F-35s , the...
.
In 1996
1996 in aviation
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1996:-February:* February 6 – Turkish charter company Birgenair Flight 301 crashes in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic after takeoff...
the RAF announced the launch of the Capability Sustainment Programme which called for, among other things, the replacement of the Skyflash with the AIM-120 AMRAAM
AIM-120 AMRAAM
The AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile, or AMRAAM , is a modern beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile capable of all-weather day-and-night operations. Designed with the same form-factor as the previous generation of semi-active guided Sparrow missiles, it is a fire-and-forget...
. AMRAAM incorporates an active seeker with a strapdown inertial reference unit and computer system, giving it fire-and-forget capability. The first Tornado ADV F.3 with limited AMRAAM capability entered service in 1998. In 2002, a further upgrade enabled full AMRAAM capability . The first mention of AMRAAM as a replacement for Skyflash dates back to 1986 .
Characteristics
- Primary function: Medium-range air-to-air missile
- Main Contractor: BAe DynamicsBAe DynamicsBritish Aerospace Dynamics Limited was a division of British Aerospace.-History:British Aerospace was created in April 1977 by the merger of the British Aircraft Corporation, Hawker Siddeley Aviation, Hawker Siddeley Dynamics and Scottish Aviation.-Formation:There were two companies in the...
, with Raytheon as subcontractor - Unit cost: £150,000 per round
- Power Plant: RocketdyneRocketdyneRocketdyne was a Rocket engine design and production company headquartered in Canoga Park, California, United States. The company was related to North American Aviation for most of its history. NAA merged with Rockwell International, which was then bought by Boeing in December, 1996...
solid propellant rocket motor - Length: 3.68 m (12 ft 1 in)
- Weight: 193 kg (425 lb)
- Diameter: 0.203 m (8 in)
- Wing span: 1.02 m (40 in)
- Range: 45 km (28 mi)
- Speed: Mach 4
- Guidance system: Marconi inverse monopulse semi-active radar homing
- Warheads: High explosive expanding ring with proximity fuse
- Warhead weight: 39.5 kg (87 lb)
- Users: UK (Royal Air ForceRoyal Air ForceThe Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
), Saudi Arabia (Royal Saudi Air ForceRoyal Saudi Air ForceThe Royal Saudi Air Force , is the aviation branch of the Saudi Arabian armed forces. The RSAF has developed from a largely defensive military force into one with an advanced offensive capability...
), Italy (on leased Tornado F3Panavia Tornado ADVThe Panavia Tornado Air Defence Variant is a long-range, twin-engine interceptor version of the swing-wing Panavia Tornado. The aircraft's first flight was on 27 October 1979, and it entered service in 1986. It was retired on 22 March 2011 by the Royal Air Forceand is now only in service with the...
s), SwedenSwedenSweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
(Royal Swedish Air Force). - Date deployed: 19781978 in aviationThis is a list of aviation-related events from 1978:-January:* January 1 – British Aircraft Corporation, Hawker Siddeley, and Scottish Aviation are absorbed into British Aerospace...
- Date retired: Being replaced with AMRAAM on Tornado fleet
Operators
- Italian Air ForceItalian Air ForceThe Italian Air Force has gone under different names in different periods:*Regia Aeronautica , from 1923 to June 1946*Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana, the air force of Italian Social Republic during World War II...
- Royal Saudi Air ForceRoyal Saudi Air ForceThe Royal Saudi Air Force , is the aviation branch of the Saudi Arabian armed forces. The RSAF has developed from a largely defensive military force into one with an advanced offensive capability...
- Royal Swedish Air force Made under license as the Robot 71
- Royal Air ForceRoyal Air ForceThe Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...