The Wagtail missile, also known as "Wag Tail", was a short-range nuclear missile developed in the late 1950s by
Minneapolis-Honeywell under a contract awarded by the
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Si ...
. Intended for use as an auxiliary weapon by bomber aircraft, the missile was successfully test fired in 1958, but the program was cancelled in the early 1960s.
Design and development
The Wagtail project was initiated in 1956, with Minneapolis-Honeywell being contracted to develop a short-range, solid-rocket-powered missile. The missile would be armed with a low-yield nuclear warhead, and was intended for use as a tactical support missile by supersonic aircraft engaged in low-level attacks.
[Parsch 2003]
The Wagtail missile was intended to be fitted with a guidance system that utilised an
inertial navigation
An inertial navigation system (INS) is a navigation device that uses motion sensors ( accelerometers), rotation sensors ( gyroscopes) and a computer to continuously calculate by dead reckoning the position, the orientation, and the velocity ...
system and a
terrain-following radar
Terrain-following radar (TFR) is a military aerospace technology that allows a very-low-flying aircraft to automatically maintain a relatively constant altitude above ground level and therefore make detection by enemy radar more difficult. It is ...
, which allowed the missile to be fired from and navigate at extremely low altitudes.
The missile was equipped with small
retrorocket
A retrorocket (short for ''retrograde rocket'') is a rocket engine providing thrust opposing the motion of a vehicle, thereby causing it to decelerate. They have mostly been used in spacecraft, with more limited use in short-runway aircraft land ...
s that
retarded the missile following release, allowing the launching aircraft the opportunity to escape the blast wave from the missile's warhead.
Operational history
By 1958, the Wagtail project had progressed to the point of live-fire flight testing; the missile was planned to be fitted to the
B-58 Hustler
The Convair B-58 Hustler, designed and produced by American aircraft manufacturer Convair, was the first operational bomber capable of Mach 2 flight.
The B-58 was developed during the 1950s for the United States Air Force (USAF) Strategic Air ...
bomber in operational service, while an alternative configuration was proposed as a
bomber defense missile, which would be fired rearwards from the carrier aircraft.
However, in the early 1960s (prior to
fiscal year
A fiscal year (or financial year, or sometimes budget year) is used in government accounting, which varies between countries, and for budget purposes. It is also used for financial reporting by businesses and other organizations. Laws in many ...
1962), despite the missiles' flight testing having proved successful,
[Huisken 1981, p.61.] the Wagtail project was canceled.
See also
*
AGM-69 SRAM
The Boeing AGM-69 SRAM (Short-Range Attack Missile) was a nuclear air-to-surface missile. It had a range of up to , and was intended to allow US Air Force strategic bombers to penetrate Soviet airspace by neutralizing surface-to-air missile de ...
*
Pye Wacket
Pye Wacket was the codename for an experimental lenticular-form air-to-air missile developed by the Convair Division of the General Dynamics Corporation in 1957. Intended as a defensive missile for the B-70 Valkyrie Mach 3 bomber, the program saw ...
References
Notes
Bibliography
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wagtail (Missile)
Cold War air-to-surface missiles of the United States
Nuclear missiles of the United States
Abandoned military rocket and missile projects of the United States
Air-to-surface missiles of the United States
Honeywell