I think Chris has got it. The fins have not finished extending yet. Judging from the size of the missile, the date it was taken and the platform its launching from, it makes sense. On the TOW, the forward fins flick out forward and the rear fins flick out to the rear. Plus, they are offset slightly, which accounts for the apparent difference in size.
If you look at the position that the fins would be in when fully extended, it makes total sense. They were probably testing the lightweight TOW launchers that eventually ended up on the Cobra. That’d account for the lack of Huey TOW launcher visible in the pic.
What about the size problem. The TOW is 46 in. long. You mentioned earlier that you thought this rocket was larger than a hellfire which is 64 inches long. I don’t see how the mystery missile could really be as small as a TOW.
Ray
Edit: Here’s a B model firing a known TOW:
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Here’s the mystery missile:
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They don’t even look close to me. Check out this link for a PDF of the History of theTOW. I haven’t had time to read it all yet, it’s 231 pages long!
I did a little Photoshoping of the two pics. I rotated the TOW launch to more closely resemble the mystery missile firing. Then I scaled the UH-1B to the same size as the Charlie model . Then I cut out the two missiles and scaled them together for a better comparison. I know the angles are different, but they don’t look the same to me and the mystery missile looks about a foot longer and greater diameter. By the way, I think there may be 3 sets of fins on the mystery missile if you look closely at the blown up versions that doesn’t look like a black line anymore. What is everyone else’s opinion?
Ray
PS: Jon, I think the UH-1B is using the light weight TOW launcher you mentioned above, is it not?
If you rotate the either TOW 45 degrees, the fins will match up perfectly. Compare the missiles in each picture to the window in the troop compartment door. They match up perfectly too.
If you look at the fins, in each pic, one set appears to be an x and one set appears to be a +, which coincides with the offsetting of the fins on the TOW. Hellfire has never had that. Hellfire fins have always been in line. For size comparison, the Hellfire is a foot longer than the TOW and about the same in diameter. It could very well be an AGM-71A-1 Extended Range TOW undergoing tests.
Then again… there’s no TOW sight on the Huey’s chin bubble…
I ain’t sayin’ it’s a hellfire, but it don’t look like a TOW to me. You make good points, though. We’ll have to wait and see what Redstone says. I have a brother-in-law there and I may have to get him to track down the history for me. One way or another, I will find out what this is if there is still a record of the test fire. What about the possibility of three sets of fins? What about the fact that the warhead on the mystery missile isn’t tapered like the 71A? Also, if they are testing the launcher, would they use the experimental orange on the missile or would they just use a training missile? Diameter difference: 152 mm (TOW) vs 178 (Hellfire), not really that much I guess. One thing is for sure, the missile is within the size parameters of both the TOW and Hellfire. However, I think we can safely assume it isn’t an anti-ship weapon at least! Boy was I wrong on that one!
In the end, I think we’ll probably see that it’s some version of a TOW missile. The red color is a bit of a stumper, usually inert ordnance is blue. The red color is probably for visual recognition for a camera following at increasing distance. There’s always many reasons why the minor fin variations exist, especially if they were testing for performance improvement or deficiency and the variations were just cycles of trial. It simply doesn’t fit any other configuration of missile except for the more modern anti-armor weapons.
I thought you guys might be interested in a color photo of one of the 553’s:
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Caption reads: “Bell YH40 Model 553 serial number 4” and is from the Army Aviation Museum Archives. This bird doen’t look like Grandad’s, though. Were each of the prototypes outfitted differently?
You ain’t kidding. I have about 70 Huey kits as of now and I ain’t closed my E-bay account yet! By the way, I spent the day climbing on a B model here at Rucker and I found some VERY unusual huey pics in the archive. Stay tuned for some very cool stuff. I alo want to take a moment to thank museum Director Steve Maxham and his staff for all their help. I can’t wait to get back in the collection tomorrow!
I hope you get to come by. Your reputation precedes you at the Museum. I got to see your Osprey Apache book, by the way. Great stuff!! I can’t wait for the Squadron pubs.
Here’s a little sample of what I found in the archives. I’m sure many of you have heard of the M24A1 20mm cannon that was mounted on the ACH-47’s. You may have even seeen a pic of one mounted on a Huey like the first pic below. However, I doubt whether many of you have ever seen,much less concieved of, dual 20mm cannons on a UH-1B! But pictures don’t lie. Check’em out.
[img]http://[img]http://This was a test bird at Rucker. I’m not sure of the date. Note that the ammo chutes are laid out on boards on top of the skids and there doesn’t appear to be any ammo in them. Check out the bracing as well. Perhaps this pic was staged for a photo op, but it still looks cool to me!
Yes, it has M-60 door guns mounted! Probably a 101st bird, I heard they armed theirs because of so much “fire” they would take up in the “north” country. Only bad thing about doing a “hoist” mission is no crew member to man the “60”. The pilot could control the hoist but it would have been tough for him not being able to see what was going on below him.
