Skyflash
Sign in to saveAlso known as British Aerospace Skyflash
The Skyflash, or Sky Flash in marketing material, was a medium-range semi-active radar homing air-to-air missile derived from the US AIM-7 Sparrow missile and carried by Royal Air Force McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantoms and Tornado F3s, Italian Aeronautica Militare and Royal Saudi Air Force Tornados and Swedish Flygvapnet Saab Viggens.
Key facts
- Weapon.is_missile
- yes
- Weapon.is_UK
- yes
- Weapon.name
- Skyflash
- Weapon.image
- File:Skyflash duxford2.jpg
- Weapon.image_size
- 300
- Weapon.caption
- Skyflash missile at Imperial War Museum Duxford
- Weapon.origin
- United Kingdom
- Weapon.type
- Medium-range air-to-air missile
- Weapon.manufacturer
- BAe Dynamics
- Weapon.designer
- Hawker Siddeley, Marconi Space & Defence Systems
- Weapon.unit_cost
- £150,000 per missile
- Weapon.service
- 1978–2006
- Weapon.engine
- Rocketdyne solid propellant rocket motor
- Weapon.weight
- 193 kg (425 lb)
- Weapon.length
- 3.68 m (12 ft 1 in)
- Weapon.diameter
- 203 mm
- Weapon.wingspan
- 1.02 m (3 ft 6 in)
- Weapon.speed
- Mach 4
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Image
- Za254.jpg
Show 4 more facts
- Commons category
- Skyflash AAM
- service entry
- 1978-01-01
- service retirement
- 2006-01-01
- military designation
- Rb 71
Sources (1)
via Wikidata · CC0
~5 min read
Article
6 sectionsContents
- History
- Former operators
- References
- Notes
- Bibliography
- See also
The Skyflash, or Sky Flash in marketing material, was a medium-range semi-active radar homing air-to-air missile derived from the US AIM-7 Sparrow missile and carried by Royal Air Force McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantoms and Tornado F3s, Italian Aeronautica Militare and Royal Saudi Air Force Tornados and Swedish Flygvapnet Saab Viggens.
Skyflash replaced the original Raytheon conical scanning seeker with a Marconi inverse monopulse seeker that worked with the F-4's radar. Monopulse seekers are more accurate, less susceptible to jamming, and able to easily pick out targets at low altitudes. It offered significantly better performance than the original seeker, allowing British Aerospace to dispense with upgrades to the warhead that were carried out in the US to address poor accuracy.