Early Systems
The first use of an IRST system appears to be the F-101 Voodoo and F-102 Delta Dagger interceptors. The Swedish Saab J-35F Draken (1965) also used an IRST, a Hughes Aircraft Company N71. The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II had a housing for an IRST, but this was never installed.
These were fairly simple systems consisting of an infra-red sensor with a horizontally rotating shutter in front of it. The shutter was slaved to a display under the main interception radar display in the cockpit, any IR light falling on the sensor would generate a "pip" on the display, in a fashion similar to the B - scopes used on early radars.
The display was primarily intended to allow the radar operator to manually turn the radar to the approximate angle of the target, in an era when radar systems had to be "locked on" by hand. The system was considered to be of limited utility, and with the introduction of more automated radars they disappeared from fighter designs for some time.
Read more about this topic: Infra-red Search And Track
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