I know, it's a bit odd... but Air Launched Sea Dart Concept?

[pyro-manic]

The air-launched CF.299 didn't have a booster.

[eatthis]

The Vulcan ADV shown on the Cover of Battle Flight had conventional Sea Dart in the Air to Air role, of course the Vulcan was able to carry the the Radar(s) needed to operate the missiles, where most conventional interceptors couldn't.

any pics of that?

[rickshaw]

Kit, putting the "petals" in the intake would increase airframe weight and complexity.  For a missile, a cone that falls away, perhaps as suggested like a "sabot" would be best.

The radar problem was, as Weaver said, the thing that killed airborne Sea Dart.  Unless you had a battlestar like a Vulcan or a converted passenger aircraft with a massive radar and oodles of power, the inferometer aerials on the Sea Dart wouldn't work.  The reason why those aerials were adopted was because they were electronically driven, rather than mechanical as a dish would be.  Basically the guidance system compares the signal from the four aerials and steers the missile to equalise them.  Much simpler and more reliable but at the cost of putting the power into the illuminating radar.  Talos took the opposite approach and it was a much larger, heavier missile as a consequence.

I note, as Geoff did, that Battle Flight portrays a Vulcan with Sea Dart with the missiles with their intakes open, which must have been very draggy but I suspect a Vulcan would simply ignore that aspect of carrying the missiles.  Can't recommend Battle Flight enough.  Like Vulcan's Hammer it lays everything out very well and explains most aspects of the systems it mentions.

[PR19_Kit]

Gotcha, makes sense to me now.

My warped mind just thought that a Vulcan carrying Sea Darts could use the ramjets for extra boost to catch the bad guys, then fire off the missiles to nail 'em! 

I'm on a Vulcan tack right now, re-reading 'Vulcan 607' for the 3rd or 4th time......

[Weaver]

I doubt whether a Vulcan could get Sea Darts going fast enough to light.....