De Havilland Firestreak - Service

Service

The first airborne launch of Blue Jay took place in 1955 from a de Havilland Venom, the target drone - a Fairey Firefly - being destroyed. Blue Jay Mk.1 entered service in 1957 with the RAF, where it was named Firestreak. Firestreak was deployed by the Royal Navy and the RAF in August 1958; it was the first effective British air-to-air missile.

For launch, the missile seeker was slaved to the launch aircraft's radar (Ferranti AIRPASS in the Lightning and GEC AI.18 in the Sea Vixen) until lock was achieved and the weapons was launched, leaving the interceptor free to acquire another target. A downside was that the missile was highly toxic (probably due to the Magpie rocket motor) and RAF armourers had to wear some form of CRBN protection to safely mount the missile onto an aircraft. "Unlike modern missiles, ... Firestreak could only be fired outside cloud, and in winter, skies were rarely clear over the UK."

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