Free Republic

This week marks the 100th birthday celebration of the late President Ronald Reagan. And his library in the southern California city of Simi Valley has been buzzing with celebrities, politicians and well wishers. I had the opportunity to travel there and learn the ties between one N.A.S. Lemoore squadron and Mr. Reagan's presidency. And how four members of today's Navy came to serve America's 40th president after his death. When the fighter jets are training over the skies above of the Naval Air Station those call the roar they make 'The Sound of Freedom'. And in this place that is...

Sidewinder The missile that has rattled enemy pilots since 1958. By Preston Lerner Air & Space Magazine, November 01, 2010 May 1956. Holloman Air Force Base, Alamogordo, New Mexico. The preflight briefing took place in the office of the base’s commanding general, but the center of attention was a cocky young Navy pilot named Glenn Tierney. He was dead certain that he was about to win a shoot-off between two weapons competing to become the United States’ first self-guided air-to-air missile. The Air Force was betting on the radar-guided Falcon, built by a vast engineering group at Hughes Aircraft. Representing...

Two years ago, the U.S. Air Force asked the manufacturer of the AIM-7X Sidewinder air-to-air missile if the weapon could be adapted to hit ground targets (including armored vehicles and speedboats). The manufacturer got to work and, recently, conducted several successful of the modified AIM-7X. The mods apparently were mainly in the fire control software, and the details are being kept secret. The AIM-7 is a heat seeking missile, and the heat sensors have become much more sensitive since the first AIM-7 entered service half a century ago. The current versions of the missile work by detecting a heat source...

The seven defendants were charged at the end of a five-year investigation into the illegal shipping of sensitive weapons, including parts used in surface-to-air missiles and fighter aircraft, prosecutors revealed. All seven, including two people of Chinese origin, were based in the Los Angeles area and allegedly attempted to export parts for weapons such as the AIM-9 "Sidewinder" heat-seeking anti-aircraft missile to China. "The investigation ... was launched in 1998 to stem the illegal flow of military and defense equipment in and out of the United States," Assistant United States Attorney Mary Carter Andrues said in a statement. The...