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."
Read more about this topic: De Havilland Firestreak
Famous quotes containing the word service:
“Old books that have ceased to be of service should no more be abandoned than should old friends who have ceased to give pleasure.”
—Peregrine, Sir Worsthorne (b. 1923)
“The ruin of the human heart is self-interest, which the American merchant calls self-service. We have become a self- service populace, and all our specious comforts—the automatic elevator, the escalator, the cafeteria—are depriving us of volition and moral and physical energy.”
—Edward Dahlberg (1900–1977)
“Mr. Speaker, at a time when the nation is again confronted with necessity for calling its young men into service in the interests of National Security, I cannot see the wisdom of denying our young women the opportunity to serve their country.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)