English Electric Thunderbird

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Thunderbird in displayed in Finnish Anti-aircraft museum (Ilmatorjuntamuseo) in Tuusula.

Thunderbird was a British surface to air missile produced for the British Army.

1 Background
2 Variants
3 Foreign Users
4 Specifications
5 See also

[edit] Background

The Thunderbird originated in a proposal to English Electric in 1949 to develop a missile to provide air defence to the British Army operating in the field away from fixed bases. As such, it was intended to replace the anti aircraft artillery which had fulfilled this role during World War II. English Electric created a Guided Weapons Division to work on the project. The project was randomly assigned the name "Red Shoes" by the Ministry of Supply.

The test programme involved a few development vehicles. The D1 and D2 established some of the basic configuration issues, whilst the D3 and D4 were used to test the aerodynamics of the design. Four boost rockets were used to launch the missile, with a sustainer engine powering it to the target. The sustainer was to be a liquid fuel rocket engine, but the Army rejected this idea because of the difficulty in handling the highly reactive liquid fuel in the field and a solid rocket sustainer was chosen instead. Several different models of sustainer were tried. The missile was to be guided by semi active radar homing via a "Yellow River" AMES Type 83 pulsed radar.

When the production missile entered service with the Army in 1959 it was officially named Thunderbird. It was the first British designed and produced missile to go into service with the British Army.

The Thunderbird was primarily intended to attack higher altitude targets at ranges of up to thirty miles or so. AA guns were still used for lower altitude threats.

One of the missiles is now displayed outside the Midlands Air Museum at Coventry Airport in Baginton, England.

[edit] Variants

An upgraded model was produced with an improved AMES Type 86 continuous wave radar. This gave greatly increased ability against low level targets and much improved performance in the face of electronic countermeasures. The improved missile was known in service as Thunderbird 2.

[edit] Foreign Users

The Thunderbird 1 was purchased by Saudi Arabia, with 37 second-hand missiles purchased in 1967.
Finland planned to purchase either the Thunderbird or Bloodhound missile in the early 1960s. The sale ultimately did not go ahead, but the country did take delivery of some training systems which are still displayed in a Museum.

Negotiations were also held with Libya and Zambia.