Skyflash

Skyflash
Prototype Panavia Tornado ADV aircraft with semi-recessed Skyflash missiles
Type	Medium-range air-to-air missile
Place of origin	United Kingdom
Service history
In service	1978-2006
Production history
Designer	Hawker Siddeley, Marconi Space and Defence Systems
Manufacturer	British Aerospace Dynamics
Unit cost	£150,000 per missile
Specifications
Weight	193 kg (425 lb)
Length	3.68 m (12 ft 1 in)
Diameter	203 mm
Warhead	39.5 kg (87 lb)
Engine	Rocketdyne solid propellant rocket motor
Wingspan	1.02 m (3 ft 6 in)
Operational range	45 km (28 mi)
Speed	Mach 4
Guidance system	Marconi inverse monopulse semi-active radar homing

The British Aerospace Skyflash 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 F-4 Phantoms and Tornado F3s, Italian Aeronautica Militare and Royal Saudi Air Force Tornados and Swedish Flygvapnet Viggens. The missile was replaced by the more capable AMRAAM.

Skyflash came out of a British plan to develop an inverse monopulse seeker for the Sparrow AIM-7E-2 by GEC and the Royal Aircraft Establishment (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 EMI active radar fuze. The rocket motors used were the Bristol Aerojet Mk 52 mod 2 and the Rocketdyne 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 in 1978 as what was later called the 3000 Pre TEMP series (Tornado Embodied Modification Package).