Red Dean

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The Red Dean was an air-to-air missile developed by the United Kingdom in the 1950s but cancelled before development was complete.

It was a large radar-guided missile using doppler-pulse technology for use against enemy bombers.

[edit] History

The Red Dean project was split off from the Red Hawk missile project in 1951 as a 700 lb missile to be developed by Folland. Folland were not able to continue the work and the Ministry Of Supply passed it to Vickers in 1953.

The missile became a large all-aspect attack Mach 2+ weapon able to engage targets at altitudes between five thousand and fifty thousand feet. It was the planned armament of the "Thin Wing" Gloster Javelin all-weather fighter which would defend Britain from high flying subsonic or possibly supersonic bombers. Such was its size that only two would be carried.

The Thin Wing Javelin was cancelled in 1956 and Red Dean with it. A scaled down version of Red Dean was to be its successor Red Hebe which would be used for the successful F.155 interceptor design

• Length: 16 ft (4.9 m)
• Weight: 1,330 lb (603 kg)
• Speed: Mach 2.2
• Maximum altitude: 50,000 ft

An example of Red Dean is held at the Royal Air Force Museum, Cosford.

[edit] See also

• Rainbow Codes

[edit] References

• The 'Secret' World of Vickers Guided Weapons, J. Forbat, Tempus, 2006, ISBN 0-7524-3769-0

British Cold War Defence Projects Air-to-air missiles Blue Sky | Blue Jay | Red Dean | Red Hebe | Blue Jay Mk 4 "Red Top" | Blue Vesta Air-to-surface missiles Green Cheese | Blue Steel Surface-to-air missiles and satellite launch vehicles Red Duster | Red Shoes | Blue Streak | Black Arrow | Black Knight Surface-to-surface missile Orange William | Blue Rapier/Red Rapier cruise missiles Nuclear warheads Red Snow | Yellow Sun | Violet Club | Red Beard | Blue Danube | Blue Peacock Artillery Green Mace