I have heard of kills using the sidewinder on the sabres and starfighters.
I guess it was the infrared version.
the radar version came out in 1979. Only the BVR version is radar guided, ie the super 530F and 530D. the only IR version is the R-530.
I will answer couple of question over here instead looking for members and answer them.
First
In 1971 we did use Sidewinders but they were not IR , The Sidewinders we used at that time a 12 year old can make those, it had a total of 3 degree of angle which comes out to be 1.5gs, so if you fired it at the enemy and he did a hard turn or jinks the Missile would miss the target.
The sidewinders we had used to tract elector-Magnatic , how it work we will use a Graph, when a missile is fire the missile on the graph keeps going up if it misses the target the graph drops down and it exploded.
Second
IAF has BVR and PAF does not so is PAF in trouble ? NO
BVR Beyond Visual Range fire and forget, A fighter fires its missile from a 100 miles away for example. It is locked on to one target only. It fired on a F7PG now we have the tech to tell if the plane is being painted / targeted, Now he had a lot of option the simplest is Flares which are 3 times hotter than the engine he fires 10 flares the BVR suddenly has 11 targets and them we have Jamming pods as well by the time the missile is close to the fighter it will be so pissed off and confused it might just go back and hit its own operator and will miss its target but before it does than the warhead will explode because it will know it missed the target and wants to take out what ever it can. So there is a 50 50 chance it will hit. Yes if the pilot is unaware than yes he is history but he will still know have time to Eject because when the missile enters his range the plane if start cursing at the pilot to do something.
Anti-aircraft ('Surface to Air' or SAM) missiles come in many different shapes and sizes. However, they are most likely to use small sized portable SAMs, known in the trade as 'Manpads' (MAn Portable Air Defense Systems).
These portable Manpads have a very small rocket in a launching tube. The user simply aims the rocket at the target and then pulls the launching trigger (they are very simple to operate). The rocket has a heat seeking nose that senses the heat from the target, which steers itself to the target. When the rocket physically hits the target, its explosive charge is detonated.
Because the missile flies directly into the hottest thing that it can see in the sky, it will typically lock onto engine exhausts - these are the hottest parts of most planes. For this reason, most missiles have to be fired from behind the plane, to make it easier for the missile to 'see' the exhaust coming out of the jet (or propeller) engines.
The US Stinger missile and the Soviet style SA-7 SAMs are the best known varieties of these Manpads. They typically have a range of 3 - 5 miles, and can attack targets up to about a maximum height of 10,000-12,000 ft.
It can take a soldier as few as five seconds to ready a Stinger, aim it, and fire it. One guy could fire five rockets in a single minute. And it typically takes only 15 seconds for the missile to reach its target - it all happens incredibly quickly, with very little time for any defensive measures.
The missiles don't have an infinite life. Their batteries eventually fail, but they are definitely reliable for at least five years, and potentially for ten years or longer.
How Likely is it that a Missile would Hit an Undefended Plane
Assuming that the plane has no countermeasures (see below) then the probability of it being hit by a missile is anything up to about 90% in a 'perfect' scenario.
If the missile is in poor condition, and if it is not correctly sighted and fired, or if the plane isn't in a good position relative to the missile launch, then of course this probability greatly reduces, and it seems that typical 'success' rates for missiles being fired in real world conditions against undefended planes are in the 50% range. In addition is another unknown - the number of times that would-be attackers don't launch missiles due to being unable to get a good firing solution.
How the Israeli 757-300 Avoided Two Missiles
This is an intriguing mystery. Officially, the Israeli plane was not carrying any countermeasures, but somehow two missiles both missed the plane. There are several possible explanations - maybe the missiles were old and faulty, and maybe they were incorrectly fired.
Some insiders guess this plane did indeed have countermeasures. It is generally believed that all El Al planes have missile countermeasures. This was a charter plane, not an El Al plane, but it may also have been the charter plane that the Israeli Prime Minister had been using just several weeks earlier - and you just absolutely know, for sure, that anything the Israeli Prime Minister flies on would have lots of protection.
There have also been some puzzling descriptions about noises coming from the rear of the plane while the missiles were approaching. That suggests, to me, the sound of flare dispensers firing out their flares. And so, although the Israelis officially deny this, it is likely the plane was equipped with counter measures, and the counter measures were probably the main factor enabling the plane to escape from the two missiles. Defenseless planes are unlikely to be as lucky.
What Damage Would Occur
Strangely, a civilian airplane is much harder to destroy than a military jet. A heat seeking missile is probably going to hit and explode either right inside an engine or else very close to it.In the case of a military jet, its engines are tightly integrated inside the main fuselage of the plane, and an explosion in an engine will probably damage a lot more than the engine alone. But a regular passenger plane has engines suspended on pylons from the wings. An explosion inside one of those engines may cause less damage. Sure, the engine will probably be destroyed, but all jets can safely fly on one less engine.The unknown is whether the explosion will then cause pieces of metal to fly into the wing and possibly damage hydraulic lines, control surfaces, or fuel tanks, and what the implications of this additional damage might be.
Manpads don't have very large warheads. Typically they have perhaps 2-4 pounds of high explosive. This is enough to destroy an engine or to cause localised damage to part of a wing, but it may not be enough to cause the wing to fall off, and it may or may not cause critical damage that prevents the plane from limping back to an airport.Of the five Boeing 727s and 737s hit by Manpads, three were destroyed (and remember that the 727 is more vulnerable than the 737 due to having its engines close to the fuselage).
How to Defend Against SAMs
There are
five main types of countermeasures against an IR SAM attack. The
first is evasive maneuvering of the plane to avoid the missile. However, that is close to impossible for a passenger plane in the few minutes immediately after take-off or before landing.The
second is to release small flares - little matchbox sized objects that burn very intensely and hotly for a short while. In theory the missile sees the flare and ignores the airplane. A potential problem is that flares, if ejected at low altitude, may land on the ground (or on people or cars or buildings) while still burning, causing damage and potentially starting fires.The
third is to use an IR 'jammer' - devices on the plane that send out special IR radiation that confuses the missile and causes it to fly off course. The
fourth is a new capability of using a high power laser to burn out the seeker head on the missile so that it is 'blinded' and flies harmlessly off course. I don't know much about this, but it seems to me that a laser powerful enough to burn out the seeker head could burn out a lot of other things, too, that came in its path.A
fifth possibility is to have military fighters escorting all passenger planes in and out of the highest risk areas around airports. Although this has been suggested, the costs of this would be exorbitant, air traffic control issues would be a nightmare, and it is not a practical solution. Worst of all, the mere presence of a fighter plane doesn't mean that it will be able to defend a civilian airliner against missile attack. What would it do? Sacrifice itself? Try and shoot the missile down?
Even the most sophisticated combination of defensive strategies are unlikely to provide 100% protection against the latest generation of SAMs. For example, the Russian SA-18 Igla missile has a dual band IR seeker to prevent it being confused by flares or IR jammers. There are thousands of SA-18s in military inventories around the world. But again we do have the capabilities to counter them , I can't and will not got into details.
IMRAN :
Beta your question how can a bird damage a plane
Simple if you throw a rock at a standing cars windshild it might not break the glass but if the car is moving at 25 MPH and you throw the rock it will break the glass. There are different force working on the wind shield.
First the weight of your rock the speed of your rock the weight of the car and the speed of the car if you combine all of these factors and then think of a fighter flying at between 120mph to mach 2.5 what will happen to the plane if is object hits it will only 2 or 3 mile per hour. KABOOM
