Orange "missiles"
- Enthusiast
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Now this may seem like a really stupid question to you guys, but I really want to know lol. What are those orange missiles that are sometimes seen on the wingtips of F-16s? If they are practice missiles, how exactly do they work and why don't they just use real sidewinders?
- Elite 1K
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These are dummy "missiles", made out of some kind of Plastic I'd guess?
They are there just to prevent the wing from fluttering due to workload and pressure on the wing. They don't use real Sidewinders because there's no need to, and also because they might don't want to have all those living Sidewinders flying all over the place with new pilots .
BTW, sometimes you'll see blue missiles instead of orange.
They also sometimes use Smokewinders in airshows. These "missiles" don't have the front set of canards and are used to generate smoke.
Hope that helps
They are there just to prevent the wing from fluttering due to workload and pressure on the wing. They don't use real Sidewinders because there's no need to, and also because they might don't want to have all those living Sidewinders flying all over the place with new pilots .
BTW, sometimes you'll see blue missiles instead of orange.
They also sometimes use Smokewinders in airshows. These "missiles" don't have the front set of canards and are used to generate smoke.
Hope that helps
- Senior member
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No the missles are not made of plastic, nor are they put on the wingtips for the reason you stated. They are captive carry missles for training. They track IR sources like the real thing but do not fire. Some are painted orange for recognition purposes, for example in a 2V2 (all would be F-16's) the players might get confused as to who his wing man might be.....the orange ones solve this dilema.
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No again, They are AMA/AMD pods and are used to ID different members of a given flight during training. Example, ACM mission, 2v2. 2 guys with orange 2 with grey. That way they can tell between vipers when training with each other. They have other uses but this is the most common.
F16 462 AD USAF. Crew dog for 3 and Even a pointy head for a few months.
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In the navy the orange pods are called TACTS pods. It stands for tactical air crew training system. Basiclly the pod sends the aircraft info back to a command center on the ground, so that the dogfight can be watched in real time. The engagement is also going to be recorded, so it can be used to debrief the pilots, like in the movie TOP GUN. The blue missles that look like a sidewinder, are called CATM-9's. AIM-9 stands for air intercept missle, CATM stands for captive air training missle. Basiclly the CATM is like a real, sidewinder, but dosen't have a warhead or rocket motor. In training, a single CATM can be used over and over to target your wingman or whoever you may be in a mock dogfight with. Thats why you may see an aircraft carrying a TACTS pod on one wingtip, and only a single CATM 9 on the other wing tip, that one missle can be used as many times as needed in a single engagement.
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USAF CATMs are grey just like the real thing, just no zip or bang. We have ACMI pods that are used as telemtry pods on some ranges. They are grey also. I have loaded more than my fair share of all of them though these days the ACMI pods are loaded by contractors.
F16 462 AD USAF. Crew dog for 3 and Even a pointy head for a few months.
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Perhaps I should have defined my statement a little. When I retired from the 466th FS 5 years ago they had captive carry AIM 9L's that were painted orange for the reasons that I stated. I have no idea if they use them like that anymore or not. They would have looked similar to this pic
http://www.f-16.net/f-16_photos_album05-photoaal.html
http://www.f-16.net/f-16_photos_album05-photoaal.html
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My unit flies with these orange sidewinders. They are not any sort of tracking pod (ie ACMI, CATM) but simply dead weight. Often on there is a CATM missile on the opposing station. The orange missiles we have are hollowed out bodies filled with some sort of weight for ballast. I have also seen more and more that missiles in general are being moved to stations 2 & 8 to relieve some of the stresses that wingtip missilies add to the wing. In wartime, over in Iraq, we had to move the missiles because the stress was constantly loosening our wing fuel cell screws near the wing tip. Any way, off topic. I hope this helps.
F-16C/D Block 30/40 NMANG
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-J. Paul Riddle, 1986
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-J. Paul Riddle, 1986
- Senior member
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This was a huge battle some years back, the discussion focused around allowing them to be painted orange for training, the logistics as to the upload/download of the orange vs. gray pods was a big factor. As we all can see the approval was granted. In the USAF, the missile body assembly (MBA) is painted orange, and can be attached to a GCS to create an orange CATM-9 or to an AMD to create an orange (at least partial) AMA. As Eric stated above, most commonly in the USAF it is the AMA config.
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In the 466th FS at Hill (AFRC) we use the orange pods for identification as Friend or Foe during flight. Makes the target aircraft easier to identify for the other pilots from far away. The ones we use are never actual sidewinders or have seeker heads.
Mark, what shop were you in? I'm a loadie! Hooah.
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