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Thunderbird (missile)
The English Electric Thunderbird was a British surface-to-air missile produced for the British Army. Thunderbird was primarily intended to attack higher altitude targets at ranges up to approximately 30 miles (48 km), providing wide-area air defence for the Army in the field. Anti-aircraft guns were still used for lower altitude threats. Thunderbird entered service in 1959 and underwent a major mid-life upgrade to Thunderbird 2 in 1966, before being slowly phased out by 1977. Ex-Army Thunderbirds were also operated by the Royal Saudi Air Force after 1967.
Thunderbird had performance similar to other semi-portable missiles like the US MIM-23 Hawk and fully mobile Soviet 2K11 Krug, although it pre-dates both of these systems. After its mid-life upgrades, which shared several components with the RAF's Bristol Bloodhound, Thunderbird featured a continuous-wave radar semi-active homing system that was highly resistant to radar jamming and deception, and was able to track targets even at very low altitudes.
Thunderbird was the Army's only heavy anti-aircraft missile. As missile systems like Thunderbird made flight at medium and higher altitudes practically suicidal, nap-of-the-earth flying became the norm and even shorter-range, faster acting systems were needed. Thunderbird's role was taken over by the much smaller Rapier missile as it became available.
Thunderbird traces its history to the 1947 reorganisation of British missile projects. At the time there was a wide variety of concepts under study among various groups in the British Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force. All of these were handed to the Ministry of Supply (MoS) with the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) providing technical direction.
Among the projects inherited by the RAE was a 1943 Navy effort to develop surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) to shoot down aircraft carrying glide bombs and anti-shipping missiles before they could reach firing range. In March 1944, a panel known as the GAP Committee formed within the MoS to consider this and similar designs from the Army. The group was reformed several times, growing each time as the topic grew more important. From their work the LOPGAP experimental design emerged, short for "Liquid Oxygen and Petrol Guided Anti-aircraft Projectile". Armstrong Whitworth won a contract to develop its liquid-fueled rocket engine.
The Navy's initial design was reformulated several times as the threat evolved from propeller-driven medium bombers to jet-powered strike aircraft, but remained largely the same in terms of performance; it called for a missile using beam riding guidance on the Navy's Type 909 radar with range on the order of 30,000–60,000 yards (17–34 miles) and capability against subsonic aircraft. This was renamed Seaslug in 1947, shortly before being moved to the RAE. The RAE was interested in seeing ramjet technology applied to this role, and asked de Havilland to submit an entry for Seaslug as well. They were too busy working with Red Hawk, so the contract was offered to Bristol Aerospace instead.
The GAP committee also considered the needs of the Army and Air Force, based on the same technology but aimed at higher performance aircraft and longer ranges on the order of 100,000 yards (57 miles). As a new project, it was assigned a name under the newly-introduced MoS rainbow code, "Red Heathen". English Electric won the development contract.
Due to the way radar signals spread out in space with increasing range, beam riding is only useful at shorter ranges, and a paper produced by the RAE suggested that there was no way Red Heathen's accuracy requirements could be met with existing radars. This meant new Gun Laying radars would have to be developed for this role, and that, in turn, led to a re-evaluation of the Red Heathen concept.
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Thunderbird (missile)
The English Electric Thunderbird was a British surface-to-air missile produced for the British Army. Thunderbird was primarily intended to attack higher altitude targets at ranges up to approximately 30 miles (48 km), providing wide-area air defence for the Army in the field. Anti-aircraft guns were still used for lower altitude threats. Thunderbird entered service in 1959 and underwent a major mid-life upgrade to Thunderbird 2 in 1966, before being slowly phased out by 1977. Ex-Army Thunderbirds were also operated by the Royal Saudi Air Force after 1967.
Thunderbird had performance similar to other semi-portable missiles like the US MIM-23 Hawk and fully mobile Soviet 2K11 Krug, although it pre-dates both of these systems. After its mid-life upgrades, which shared several components with the RAF's Bristol Bloodhound, Thunderbird featured a continuous-wave radar semi-active homing system that was highly resistant to radar jamming and deception, and was able to track targets even at very low altitudes.
Thunderbird was the Army's only heavy anti-aircraft missile. As missile systems like Thunderbird made flight at medium and higher altitudes practically suicidal, nap-of-the-earth flying became the norm and even shorter-range, faster acting systems were needed. Thunderbird's role was taken over by the much smaller Rapier missile as it became available.
Thunderbird traces its history to the 1947 reorganisation of British missile projects. At the time there was a wide variety of concepts under study among various groups in the British Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force. All of these were handed to the Ministry of Supply (MoS) with the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) providing technical direction.
Among the projects inherited by the RAE was a 1943 Navy effort to develop surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) to shoot down aircraft carrying glide bombs and anti-shipping missiles before they could reach firing range. In March 1944, a panel known as the GAP Committee formed within the MoS to consider this and similar designs from the Army. The group was reformed several times, growing each time as the topic grew more important. From their work the LOPGAP experimental design emerged, short for "Liquid Oxygen and Petrol Guided Anti-aircraft Projectile". Armstrong Whitworth won a contract to develop its liquid-fueled rocket engine.
The Navy's initial design was reformulated several times as the threat evolved from propeller-driven medium bombers to jet-powered strike aircraft, but remained largely the same in terms of performance; it called for a missile using beam riding guidance on the Navy's Type 909 radar with range on the order of 30,000–60,000 yards (17–34 miles) and capability against subsonic aircraft. This was renamed Seaslug in 1947, shortly before being moved to the RAE. The RAE was interested in seeing ramjet technology applied to this role, and asked de Havilland to submit an entry for Seaslug as well. They were too busy working with Red Hawk, so the contract was offered to Bristol Aerospace instead.
The GAP committee also considered the needs of the Army and Air Force, based on the same technology but aimed at higher performance aircraft and longer ranges on the order of 100,000 yards (57 miles). As a new project, it was assigned a name under the newly-introduced MoS rainbow code, "Red Heathen". English Electric won the development contract.
Due to the way radar signals spread out in space with increasing range, beam riding is only useful at shorter ranges, and a paper produced by the RAE suggested that there was no way Red Heathen's accuracy requirements could be met with existing radars. This meant new Gun Laying radars would have to be developed for this role, and that, in turn, led to a re-evaluation of the Red Heathen concept.