What colour is my missile?

[Nick]

Sounds like a simple question. But the answer is damned hard to work out!

My F-16 is serving in the RAF in 1983. She has 2x AIM-9 Sidewinders and 2x AIM-7 Sparrows under her wings. But what colour should they be and what do all the different colour bands mean?

So far I'm looking at all white or white with a black nose. Any better ideas?

Nick B)  

[viper29_ca]

The color bands denote different things.

Starting from the back, of the missile, the first color band would indicate whether the rocket motor was a live motor, smoke motor, or inert.

Next one would be either the guidance or the warhead, depending on the missile, again, live, or inert, and then the next band would be again, either warhead or guidance whether live our inert.

I am not sure if the UK would have used the same color schemes as the US would.

I looked for about 20mins, and found nothing related on Google. Sorry I couldn't help more.  

[Scooterman]

Quick check of a ref and going off memory, both would have white bodies with the snake a very dark metallic green (almost black) front.  As Viper pointed out the bands denote warhead, motor etc.  However if there were training missiles all the bands would be blue and at least for the Snake there would be black squares with 'drill' or inert' in white on them.  Do a google for RAF Hawks in the air defence grey schemes and you'll see what I mean.

HTH

[SimonR]

Here's an AIM-9 close up:



The AIM-9 had three stripes from back to front indicating rocket motor, warhead and seeker state. Three blue stripes would be an inert training round. Live rocket motors and warheads had brown stripes and a live seeker head had a yellow stripe. A warshot therefore being brown-brown-yellow. There were also blue-blue-yellow rounds that had inert rocket motors and warheads but live seekers. All NATO AIM-9 users have this scheme.

EDIT: I think Sparrow/Skyflash had a different system that had more stripes. This was beyond my comprehension 15 years ago, never mind now.  

[Jennings]

The missiles (live ones) carried by the F-15s up in Alaska in the 1980s when I was stationed there were colored as follows:

AIM-9L = body was ~FS36375, seeker head was dark metallic grey, and fins were white (main) and dark metallic grey (fwd).

AIM-7F = Body ~36375/36320, fins dark metallic grey, radome off white/buff.

The missiles almost, but not quite, matched the camo on the F-15s that carried them.

Color bands:

Yellow = live warhead
Brown = live motor
Blue = inert

I've never seen any other color stripes on a US missile besides those three.  AFAIK there are no smoke motors.  There are smoke generator pods, but they're only used for test purposes or airshows.

J

[Shasper]

Also it's possible that the CATM-9s (training rounds) could have the rollerons on the aft fins removed, if not 1 or both sets of fins left off altogether.

Shas B)

[Jennings]

Also it's possible that the CATM-9s (training rounds) could have the rollerons on the aft fins removed, if not 1 or both sets of fins left off altogether.

Shas B)

Yes.  Usually they have plain sheet metal fins bolted on.  Most of the time they'll have the fwd fins, but sometimes not the aft fins on them.  Usually they'll have blue bodies, or sometimes grey bodies with blue bands.

J

[gengriz]

The colours on the bands are standardised across (most) old-NATO forces and apply to all ammunition, not just aircraft ones.  Yellow denotes High Explosive (i.e the warhead), Brown is propellant (i.e the motor), red is incendiary (e.g. flares), Mid Blue (Cambridge Blue IIRC) denotes inert/practice and dark blue is drill (not usually flown).  Pink denotes a telemetry package, orange is apparently Nuclear (but I have my doubts whether this was ever actually implemented), grey (eau de nil IIRC - a sort of greeny grey) is chemical (e.g smoke rounds).  Note that a complex missile can have many of these at the same time.

The colour relates only to the explosive hazard, so there is no reason for the seeker head to be marked in a colour - e.g. a practice round would only have the blue stripe(s), even if its seeker was live - any yellow marking denotes HE.   It might also have brown and/or red if it has a live motor (i.e. can actually be fired) and/or tracking flares.

[Mossie]

Here's a pic of WE.177, Martel & Sea Eagle I took at the Yorkshire Air Museum:



The WE.177 doesn't have any banding in common with Gengriz's reservations about Nuclear weapons not being banded, although the canister at the top is orange, but I don't know what it is & it's relevance to the bomb.  It's marked 'Training', so I guess it should be blue rather than orange anyway.

The Martel has a yellow band forward & a brown band (hard to make out, just above the brace) behind.  So I guess this was a live round at one time, hope it isn't any more cos there were a few kids playing about on the Canberra noses just to the right of this pic!

The Sea Eagle has a dark blue band forward with a white band behind marked 'Instrumentation'.  Anyone know what the white band was for?

[AeroplaneDriver]

Mossie-
I took almost that exact shot at the YAM in August!

I am very likely wrong, but I seem to recall reading that the orange canister on the WE177 contains the umbilicals which attach to the aircraft.  The WE177 at the North East Air Museum at Sunderland has the same canister.

As for the AIM7/9 issue...Twobobs make a missile markings set for the Sidewinder and Sparrow.  It looks like it's out of stock right now, but the website has a picture of the instructions which may be useful to you.  

www.twobobs.net

Do a search for AIM-9 and you'll find it in the 'sold out' list.

[P1127]

RAF Sparrows were white, Skyflash were light grey with white nose caps

in 1983, RAF Winders were mainly white.

The orange markings for nuclear weapons certainly existed - somewhere I have a photo of a live WE177 with orange bands