Sea Eagle (missile)

Sea Eagle
A drawing of the Sea Eagle
Type	Anti-ship missile
Place of origin	United Kingdom
Service history
In service	1985-present
Used by	See operators
Production history
Designer	BAe Dynamics
Designed	1976
Manufacturer	BAe Dynamics (1982–1999) MBDA (UK) Ltd (since 1999)
Produced	1982
Variants	Sea Eagle SL (surface-launched) tested, others proposed.
Specifications
Weight	580 kg
Length	4.14 m
Warhead	230 kg
Engine	Turbojet
Wingspan	1.2 m
Operational range	110 km +
Speed	Mach 0.85 +
Guidance system	Inertial, with active radar homing
Steering system	Control surface
Launch platform	Fixed and rotary wing aircraft

The BAe Sea Eagle is a medium weight sea-skimming anti-ship missile designed and build by BAe Dynamics (now MBDA). It is designed to sink or disable ships up to the size of aircraft carriers in the face of jamming and other countermeasures including decoys. Its users include the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy, the Royal Saudi Air Force, and the Indian Navy.

The anti-ship version of the Martel missile entered service with the RAF in October 9, and the Royal Navy one year later. These missiles were designed around an television guidance system using a camera in the nose of the missile that sent its image back to the launch aircraft via a data link radio system. The weapon officer in the aircraft, normally the Blackburn Buccaneer, used the image to guide the missile via signals sent back to the missile on the same data link. This method of operation had been chosen for its simplicity; in comparison, an active radar seeker would be prone to all sorts of countermeasures, including chaff and active jamming systems, and would require some form of navigation system for the approach while the missile was still under the radar horizon.

The desire for a ship-launched anti-ship missile led to some consideration of an active seeker for the Martel, under the name Ship Martel (or Active Martel). As the launching ship would be under the radar horizon of the target, a data link or similar solution that required a line-of-sight would not work. Marconi won the contract for the radar seeker, a very simple one-axis (left-right) seeker that they claimed would be much less expensive than the Adac seeker of Exocet or the RE576 used on the AS.34 Kormoran and Otomat. A small rocket booster was used to launch the missile up to altitude. This role was ultimately filled by the Exocet.