Export restricted (ITAR), sale only to US Citizens and Organizations. AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missile components, including: the head section with four fins and umbilical cable, standing 15.5" tall and measuring 15" across the fins; and the optical seeker 'eye' with empty housing cylinder, measuring 14" long with a diameter of 5".
The short-range air-to-air missile entered service with the US Navy in 1956, subsequently was adopted by the US Air Force in 1964, and remains standard equipment in most western-aligned air forces today. It uses an innovative reticle seeker, which is the most common optical system design employed in conventional heat seeking missiles. Future astronaut Wally Schirra was a Sidewinder project test pilot, and remembered his first encounter with the 'dome-shaped device, made of glass….a man made eyeball. I was a cigarette smoker in those days, and I had one in my hand. As I crossed the room, I noticed that the eyeball was tracking me.' He later had a Sidewinder circle back on him during a test flight, but managed to outrun it.
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