Something I just thought of, that I doubt we’d be able to find an answer to, is how does the heat sensor on the Stinger operate? Presumably the amount of heat generated by your typical aircraft engine is a lot lower than the heat produced by the shuttle engines. Would the Stinger be able to recognize the heat signature of the shuttle, or would it be so much hotter than the heat signature it’s programmed to find that it’d ignore it because it would assume that it’s bad data?
Good point, I think they are programmed to ignore the Sun, it might ignore the shuttle engines as well. Just a WAG.
I’m not familiar with the FIM-92 Stinger, but in general heat seeking warheads lock on the largest thermal source in their field of view. This was actually a real problem on the Stinger’s predecessor, the FIM-43 Redeye missile (and various other thermal seekers) in that they would frequently lock onto the Sun and fly until they ran out of fuel. More modern systems generally identify the characteristic IR spectra of solar light and mask it out, but they don’t otherwise generally discriminate between sources, especially since there is often a lot of noise with thermal signatures, and only a limited amount of real-time embedded processing capability that can be stuffed into a small seeker (at least, using Eighties-era technology).
Stranger
According to jjiimm, you can spectate from three miles away. The Stinger’s range is greater than that.
The shuttle is pulling less than 2G at the relevant time. You think the type of planes the stinger is designed for can’t do that? If a stinger was incapable of hitting a plane that simply pulled up hard at less than 2G it would never hit anything at all, since that is exactly what any pilot would do when it saw one coming.
You’re right about the 200m effective range, I agree.
The Stinger’s range is less than 3 miles. See Wikipedia link in post #2.
Well the basic FIM-92 stinger’s range is 4800m according to Wiki, which is 2.982 miles. I’m going to go out on a very fragile limb and propose that perhaps there is some safety margin built into NASA’s spectator zone distance, and that it is not a case of three miles = safe, but 92 feet closer = death or injury.
Besides which, if you check out other more detailed links you’ll find out that later versions of the stinger have a range of 8000m.
The Cape Canaveral Launch Viewing Site is about six miles from the nearest shuttle launch site LC-39A, if Google Maps (and Google Earth) is to be believed.
The general viewing site may be but there are any number of reports of people who’ve been invited to the VIP or media areas who say they were at three miles and weren’t turned to jelly (at least they don’t say they were).
Ah. I was wondering if it, like some of the electronics I’ve dealt with, simply ignored anything outside of a given range, assuming it to be “bad data.” Nevermind that some times the data actually is correct and whomever programmed the system just didn’t think of that possibility (or figured that it was so rare as to not be bothered with).
Aha! This proves that the moon launch was a fake!
What if you used a laser guided missile like a Starstreak or RBS-70? The range is about 4 miles. I realize that these particular models require the operator to maintain a laser fix and guide the missile but I know that munitions are sometimes guided in via semi-active laser homing where a the laser comes from a different source. You could have one person in the swamp with the missile, another person at a different location with a laser to “paint” the SS. The spotter aims at the SS, the shooter fires the missile and takes off. The spotter with the laser could have it mounted in a video camera so that if they are caught they could just say they snuck in to get a better viewpoint for filming. What is the maximum range for using a laser to paint a target?
Most. Expensive. Mythbusters. Ever.
I suppose they could build a mock-up shuttle…
Just for the record, wandering around through swamps full of gators is not particularly dangerous. Gators will go out of their way to avoid humans, so unless you go near a nest you don’t need to worry much.
Gator-related fatalities in Florida over the last thirty years are comfortably under 50, in a state where at least once a month you see a news story about a 8±foot alligator caught in a pool/bathroom/garage/kitchen.
Former stinger misslile gunner/teamchief here. Not to pick on you specifically, kanicbird, but that’s complete BS, as is much of this thread. Low flying aircraft may be taking offf or landing, but are often trying to fly under radar at high speed. They’re still easy targets for a stinger if the team is positioned correctly.
The high temperature of the exhaust is irrelevent for reasons I cannot reveal (security clearance and all that). It would not be confused with the sun.
Alweays remember that any official specifications are bullshit. I’ve had a HMMWV at over twice it’s official “top speed.”
The shuttle is toast.
Hijack - why are Stingers operated by a team? It’s just a shoulder-mounted launcher, right?
(if team = 1 guy to launch and 1 guy to carry extra rounds, I suppose that would make sense)
I’m not sure if stinger teams exist anymore as they did back when I was in the Army, as they were starting to mount them in pods of 4 on the back of a HMMWV.
Anyway, you move and dig in at night, then watch for targets all day. Two people are needed for navagation and sleep. The gunner is usually inexperienced (up to 2 years out of training), and the teamchief makes the decisions (usually a spec4 or higher, occasionally an E3.) IIRC when we were monted on APC’s, we had 3 man teams, with 2 gunners and a teamchief.
That and the fact that you’re positioned between what you are trying to protect and the enemy. Who would want to be alone out there! You need to be able to hit + run, as once you’ve fired, you’ve got a big old smoke arrow pointing a little ahead of your position. You suddenly have lots to do very quickly.
I would think the more obvious way to go would be a man portable anti-tank missile of some kind, eg Javelin or TOW - why wait until its in the air or making really big noises? With a bit of nice timing you could maybe even hit it as its starting to hit ignition?
Otara