Sidewinder: Creative Missile Development at China Lake

Sidewinder : Creative Missile Development at China Lake (2013) by Ron Westrum is a fascinating book about the development of the remarkable Sidewinder missile and a history of the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station. It’s a great tale of an engineering team doing remarkable work.At the start of the jet age it became clear that the way to shoot at jets was with missiles and rockets due to the great speeds of jets. Radar guidance was seen as the most likely guidance system. Large engineering teams at Raytheon and Hughes were formed to start building guided missiles.Meanwhile, at the Naval Ordinance Testing Station (NOTS) at China Lake as well as testing Naval weapons Dr William McClean, a physicist from Caltech looked at ways of using an Infrared (IR) Seeker. IR sensors of the time were very simplistic. McClean worked on a design with a single sensor and a rotating mirror in front of the detector. Ingeniously the change in position of the IR object in front then determined the deflection of the front fins of the Sidewinder missile. Using only a handful of vacuum tubes McClean and his team worked out a way to make a simple, cheap missile that was surprisingly accurate. They could even change the degree to which the missile would lead the target for a better intercept. The team also figured out a very clever way to have a rotating disc cause deflections of the back fins to stop the missile from rotating. The Sidewinder is a masterpiece of inspired design producing a simple effective device. It’s also interesting to note that the design for the IR seeker with the rotating mirror seems to have taken inspiration from seekers that the Germans were construction for the Blohm and Voss BV 143 glide bomb.China Lake was not meant to be developing guided missiles. Instead they could develop fuses and for the first seven years of the development of the Sidewinder it was developed as a fuse. Only after the principles were shown and Naval officers who had great trust in McClean was the missile officially funded. McClean had a reputation for success that had started with his work during WWII and there were Navy Officers who greatly respecting him.Testing of the Sidewinder was a long process. McClean selected top engineers and physicists from Caltech and other places and also was able to develop great technicians who were given a great deal of responsibility and whose insights were incorporated into designs. As well as empowering people and giving them a mission the ability for China Lake to rapidly test their designs was also crucial. Many of the people who made huge contributions to the Sidewinder and at China Lake are also mentioned.The Sidewinder went on to beat IR versions of the AIM-4 Falcon and was put into service with the US Navy and US Air Force. The book looks at how the Sidewinder performed in combat. McClean thought that the missile would have an 85% success rate but in practice in Vietnam it was much lower. However, better pilot training and improvements to the Sidewinder led the missile having great success in the Falkland War and other places. The Sidewinder also performed better than other missiles did.It’s remarkable how a government lab produced what was the first really successful guided missile and not a company. The book also describes how China Lake hasn’t maintained the level of engineering and scientific achievement that it first had as bureaucracy has weighed more heavily on it and the WWII generation aged out.The book also describes other remarkable weapons systems developed at China Lake such as the GM-62 Walleye television guided bomb and the AGM-45 Shrike anti-radar missile.Sidewinder is a fascinating book about the excellent Sidewinder missile and the team at China Lake that developed it. It’s well worth a read for anyone interested in engineering and science history.

A+

This is a great book that documented an amazing development process. I learned a lot about the key figures involved in developing the Sidewinder missile and about the politics surrounding government development in the 50’s. The main takeaway was how a small focused team can accomplish the impossible and beyond.

Excellent book, but then I worked on the system in the later years of the time covered in this book. I applaud Mr. Westrum's ability to cover so much material in a politically and securely appropriate way. I learned some new history and events that I hadn't heard before.

Awesome information on a subject you would never expect to find a book on.

Excellent description of the development of the Sidewinder and other missiles. The author also provides a great history of and insight into the people and workings of the China Lake Naval Weapons Center.

Great story, about a time and organization that focused on delivering an advanced weapon capability to the Navy and not on corporate bottom line.

Great book!

Fabulous.

米海軍研究所チャイナ・レイクで開発されたサイドワインダー空対空ミサイルの、基本コンセプト確立から、開発時における技術的な問題および解決方法も数多く取り上げおり読み応えあり。サイドワインダー各タイプも解説している。ただし、１９９９年出版のため最新型AIM-9Xに付いての記述は少ない。　開発に当たり直面した資金、政治問題、および兵器開発プロジェクトにおけるリーダー、技術者、軍研究組織のあり方にまで記載されており示唆に富む。惜しむらくは、写真、イラストが少なく、サイドワインダーの各タイプを一覧表にまとめるなど読者に対する配慮に欠ける点がある。

Missile development could make for a very dry technical read full of equations and test point data. This isn't, instead it shows the human side to a programme where a group of scientists and engineers set out to do something they'd specifically been told not to. At the same time the technical side is covered in an accessible manner allowing the average reader to understand the challenges in what they were doing and how possibly the most ubiquitous air to air missile in the world came to be.