Stealthy air to air missile?

In article ,
Henry J Cobb writes:
With a stealthy fighter you could make an attack on another aircraft
without alerting them, except for the IR signature of the missile's
rocket or ramjet engine.

Humph! Most small AAMs have a diameter of 5" (12.7 cm). and the
bigger ones have a diameter of between 8' (20.3cm) and 12" (30.5 cm).
Without any sort of stealthing, you're talking about a mighty small
target for any sort of sensor, from radar to the Mk I Eyeball.
Tiy get more of a return from the exhaust plume of the rocket motor,
and from the plume of the pyrotechnic Gas Generator used to power teh
hydraulics & such.
The IR signature starts out by being dominated by hte engine exhaust,
but by the tiem the motor burns out, and the coast phace begins, the
host parts are the nose and leading edges. No way to get around that.

I don't think stealthy missile airframes are high on anybody's
priority list.

Passive sensors, such as IR homers, are the best bet to keep a missile
undetected.

Is anybody planning a stealth AAM that uses a turbojet?

Nobody rational. You don't get the thrust you nees at high mach
numbers for a missile from a turbojet.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster

"Peter Stickney" wrote in message
...
the
host parts are the nose and leading edges. No way to get around that.

Hippag. It goes some way to helping that by cryogenically cooling the seeker
head before launch. (Though mainly to improve efficiecy of the IR sensor
than to reduce heat signature.)

Si

In article ,
"Simon Robbins" writes:
"Peter Stickney" wrote in message
...
the
host parts are the nose and leading edges. No way to get around that.

Hippag. It goes some way to helping that by cryogenically cooling the seeker
head before launch. (Though mainly to improve efficiecy of the IR sensor
than to reduce heat signature.)

That cools the seeker cell itself, not the nosecone/radome/IRdome.
The outer surfaces of teh missile structure are not cooled.
The plume of teh motor & gas generator has a not insignificant radar
signature as well, for most propellant formulations used today. In
order to increase the Specific Impulse (Thrust/Mass/Time), most solid
propellant grains, and some liquid propellants that have been tried,
use Aluminum or Magnesium powder in teh mixture. The unburned
Aluminum dust makes a detectable signature. North Vietnamese Fan Song
Radar Operators were able to detect ARM launches from the various SAM
Supressors flying against them, and occasionally shut down in time.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster