How Does The Sidewinder Missile Work?

Hey destin! I am commenting here cause i don’t know where else to! I still haven’t received my stickers and I joined around novemeber so I’m a little concerned that they aren’t coming. I know for certian that my address works because I got the baseball. Please let me know asap because i want to get this for my dads birthday which is March 25th. Thanks for all your content man, I really love it!!!

jack

Can't wait to explain to my wife that I had a small part in buying missile parts. And it's my favorite thing I've bought all year. Maaaaaaaaaybe I'll leave that out of our next budget discussion.

Andrew Phillips

Can’t wait to see what you have in store for those fins

I am gobsmacked by the rolleron stabilization system. That is sooo efffing KUUL!! I hope somebody got a raise for coming up with that! Completely passive (other than the energy from the rocket engine) and damn near nothing to break! The active nozzle on the Xray goes back to the V2, but it would be amazing to track down the guys who did the rollerons and interview them. The USAF museum folks at Wright-Patterson probably have some historical data (if there is any) and they do have real live historians that might be able to excavate their collection. That is such an elegant solution to a really gnarly problem.

Mike O'Dell

Oh man we’re all accomplices!

Controlled Insanity

I helped you buy dang MISSILE PARTS??? God, now I really wanna see what you do next....

Daniel Ryan

Hey Destin! I happened to have recently watched videos about the land speed record, and references to a Sidewinder. Stan Barrett used a 12k horsepower Sidewinder for extra kick to his 48k rocket engine, the Budweiser Rocket. I wonder if you'd help make a contribution to someone trying to break tthe record. That would be fun to watch!

I hate to say it, but for that entire video all I could think of was "The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't. By subtracting where it is from where it isn't, or where it isn't from where it is (whichever is greater)" of that silly meme from a bit ago..... so I had to watch again and nerd out about how cool the Sidewinder is!

Dear lord, Destin has missile parts now. I'm nervous :D

Ralph Price

If the missile starts to roll the rolleron would cause the fin to lag behind the missiles roll, which would then catch the airstream and induce a roll rate in the opposite direction. So it could be completely passive stabilization. I would imagine the fina opposite of each other are allowed to pivot in one direction and the other 2 in the other direction so the mechanism doesn't cause pitch or yaw.