Convair Lenticular Missile

[KJ_Lesnick]

rickshaw,

As the missile was never tested at its supposed design speeds and never against a hard manoeuvring target that is the usual, typical claim made.  They've made against every other missile since they started building guided ones.   A lot of pilots appear to have proved otherwise.

Still the missile would have been very maneuverable from an aerodynamic stand-point.  The question of course is how well the guidance system could use that maneuverability to hit a maneuvering fighter

[Sentinel Chicken]

If one looks at the dates in the list its obvious that only the first two really apply:

Pyewacket (familiar spirit), a familiar spirit, reported by an alleged witch in 1644
Pyewacket, Gillian Holroyd's cat and familiar in the film Bell, Book and Candle

Of those two, the last was a movie made in 1958.  Which fits rather neatly into the development of the missile.  As a "familiar" is a protective and facilitating spirit for a Witch, and the connection to James Stewart, I rather suspect that is the source of the name.

That's the best and most plausible explanation I've seen. Convair got the contract from the USAF for the Pye Wacket missile in 1958. Given that Pye Wacket was to *facilitate" the Valkyrie's penetration of Soviet defenses, it would have been an obvious choice back then.

[KJ_Lesnick]

Was it radar or heat-seaking?