Uncaging Sidewinder Seeker

[bop1701]

One of the tutorial videos on youtube said you can uncage the AIM9's seeker by pressing and holding the aerial refueling button ("...like on the F-5..."), to let it track the target.    I've tried this and no luck.  Master Arm ON, HEAT selected, good growl, press refueling button, and nothing.

Am I doing something wrong or is this the wrong procedure/button?  This seems an odd procedure anyway...

Thanks in advance

[Q3ark]

Check which version of sidewinder you’re using, some of them can’t uncage. I can’t remember which off the top of my head.

[KomandorAdam]

"

One of the tutorial videos on youtube said you can uncage the AIM9's seeker by pressing and holding the aerial refueling button ("...like on the F-5..."), to let it track the target.    I've tried this and no luck.  Master Arm ON, HEAT selected, good growl, press refueling button, and nothing.

Am I doing something wrong or is this the wrong procedure/button?  This seems an odd procedure anyway...

"

This is a module error - if you press the in-flight refueling button and there is silence, it means that you have lock and you can shoot (you then press the fire button without turning off the in-flight refueling button because it must be pressed all the time). The error is that there is silence instead of changing the growl to locked. If the silence ends and the search sounds again, it means that you have lost your lock.

[Mike_CK]

Load up aim-9m and see if it works. As stated, some models of the aim-9 don’t un-cage. The M model does

[Skyracer]

Does ain't seem to work

[BigNose]

1 hour ago, KomandorAdam said:

This is a module error - if you press the in-flight refueling button and there is silence, it means that you have lock and you can shoot (you then press the fire button without turning off the in-flight refueling button because it must be pressed all the time). The error is that there is silence instead of changing the growl to locked. If the silence ends and the search sounds again, it means that you have lost your lock.

It's not an error, the seekers on older Models of the AIM-9 have a small blind spot exactly pointing forward. Basically they can only see heat sources very slightly off-boresight. Thus, if uncaged, the seeker quickly centers on the heat source and the audible tone mostly/completely goes away, as the seeker will immediatly slew itself back into its own blind zone at the front whenever the heatsource comes back into view. This happens so fast that the audible noise generated while a heat source is visible, is pretty much lost entirely in uncaged operation with the seeker following a target. The same happens when you point the seeker EXACTLY towards a heatsource with the missile still caged on the jet - the growl only happens when not in the center blind spot with those versions of the AIM-9.

Edited May 24, 2024 by BigNose

[Skyracer]

I tried with 9M i does aint work.

 

Maybe someone can write a manual for dummies

 

[KomandorAdam]

1 hour ago, BigNose said:

It's not an error, the seekers on older Models of the AIM-9 have a small blind spot exactly pointing forward. Basically they can only see heat sources very slightly off-boresight. Thus, if uncaged, the seeker quickly centers on the heat source and the audible tone mostly/completely goes away, as the seeker will immediatly slew itself back into its own blind zone at the front whenever the heatsource comes back into view. This happens so fast that the audible noise generated while a heat source is visible, is pretty much lost entirely in uncaged operation with the seeker following a target. The same happens when you point the seeker EXACTLY towards a heatsource with the missile still caged on the jet - the growl only happens when not in the center blind spot with those versions of the AIM-9.

You did not understand! I explain to my friend that despite the silence, he has a lock. Despite the silence, you can fire a rocket and the rocket will hit. The only difference is that there is silence instead of the target tracking sound. Because the missile tracks the target despite silence, when it stops tracking the target the sound returns to the search standard.

[Skyracer]

Correction it works but you need to hold the button pressed

[KomandorAdam]

9 minutes ago, Skyracer said:

Correction it works but you need to hold the button pressed

I know this and I explain it to my colleague from the first post in the third post of this thread, where I quoted him in quotation marks " "!

[Ramstein]

some Aim-9's use Electronic cooling, and it is this model like with IR, the detector has a die smack in the middle with the detectors for the eye (head) around that die. If analog, you get that blind spot, but if software is involved they *intraplate* (can't think of the word I need right now, like an algorithm) and selects programmed lines off the detector to make a final lock and process further. The die and detector looks like a hybrid microelectronics chip with substrate and dies with bonded wires, but like photovoltaic, but detect light and process digital-analog. Again some with one dire, and right in the middle. This was a few decades back.

[Major Corvus]

It seems to work fine for me, on the 9M at least, and the growl turn to a high pitched constant tone when I hold the A2A button

[McVittees]

The 9P doesn’t uncage.  Others I’ve tried do.

[bop1701]

It's the air to air refueling DISCONNECT button, not the button that opens/closes the actual air to air fueling port.

And once the heat source is outside the reticle (with disconnect pressed/held and seeker tracking) the sidewinder growl stops...not a good design.   Is the seeker uncaged, locked, and tracking, or staring straight ahead at nothing.  Wasted several today...

[bpremus]

The comment about not all Aim9 can be uncaged helped me. I was expecting the same missiles and behaviour as in F5 and was a bit confused that holding a designated button does not work ( went to read the manual to doublecheck if there is something i am doing wrong) 

I have set my own mission with 9P and its behaving like in F5 (uncage, high pitch, track). I am not sure what version of aim 9 is in Nevada quick mission vs mig 23, where I didnt get the high pitch tone. Even more adding to confusion is that by pressing and holding the disconnect button the growling stops completely in my case, but if i move far out the growling starts again. Sometimes firing outside the reticle with no sound seems to make aim 9 to track anyways.

So perhaps there is some audio bug if those aim 9 in quick missions are supposed to be able to uncage. 

[DST]

Okay had the same problem yesterday. I still don't understand this, despite the marked solution. Sometimes I got the high pitch tone when refueling disconnect button pressed and target is in reticle, and sometimes growling just stops and there is no sound at all. But in the cases when no sound was heard, I could fire the missile and it hit the target. So is this by design or is this a bug? This is very confusing. Sadly I don't remember wich aim 9 variant I was using, but I think it was mostly M and P variant.

Edit: Okay so below from the manual the solution, this is correct behaviour from the P-variant:

Edited June 22, 2024 by DST