Export restricted (ITAR), sale only to US Citizens and Organizations. AIM-9B Sidewinder GCG (9D) short-range air-to-air missile head, featuring four fins and umbilical cable, standing 25.5" tall, measuring 14" across the fins, and the optical seeker 'eye' 4.75″ in diameter. The upper portion is stenciled as “S/N 1” and the entirety of the GCG (Guidance and Control Group) body is signed in ballpoint by 76 personnel members of the Naval Air Weapons Station (NAWS) at China Lake in Kern County, California. The umbilical has been wrapped and packed with aluminum foil and the GCG has been professionally mounted to a metal tray, 13.5″ x 13.5″ x 3″; the item weighs approximately 42.5 lbs. This GCG was presented to Dr. Charles P. Smith, the Assistant Technical Director and head of the Naval Weapons Center Systems Development Department, when he resigned from NAWS in 1976. Includes a prior bill of sale from Smith’s son, dated June 13, 2011, citing letters from the Department of the Navy and Jon Mussett of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which confirm that the GCG “contains no explosive hazards” and that any potential buyers must be a citizen of the United States; copies of both letters are included. According to Smith, this GCG has had its explosive payload removed and its gas generator fully fired so as to render it harmless; the GCG still retains its gyro and guidance system, which essentially served as the missile’s heart and brain.
Accompanied by informational material relative to the history of the AIM-9 Sidewinder, provenance material connected to Smith, a full list of GCG signers, and a hardcover copy of the book Sidewinder: Creative Missile Development at China Lake, which mentions both Smith and many of the other China Lake scientists who signed the offered missile head.
One of the original scientists recruited by the Navy to work at the China lake Naval Weapon Center, Dr. Smith eventually became the country’s recognized expert in guided missiles, optical lasers, and infrared technology, and is responsible for developing both the Sidewinder missile and Maverick missile programs. The recipient of the highly esteemed L. T. E. Thompson Award, Smith, during his tenure at China Lake, also designed gun mounts for bombers and ground-to-air mobile missile systems, in addition to helping manage the social environment at the NAWS naval base. After his resignation, Smith began work as a weapon analyst with Raytheon in Bedford, Massachusetts, where he was in charge of the Sidewinder and Maverick missile system programs and helped design a satellite guidance system for satellites that navigate in a preset orbit and centrically take images of the Earth.
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 fortunately managed to outrun it.
