What happens to heat seeker missiles when they miss their target?

Question

do they run outta fuel and fall on unfortunate people below?

Answer 1

Lies, damned lies and misinformation.

People are getting quite good at dressing up their ignorance with supposed certainty.

Missiles generally don't go into autonomous re-acquisition because you can no longer be sure what they are going to lock on to, it could be you. There are self destruct devices in many current munitions, I couldn't find references to support this for the AIM-9 but the links below are for HARM and the 27mm Mauser cannon used on Eurofighter Typhoon and Panavia Tornado aircraft, they have self destructing HE rounds available.

If you are doing M2.5 at 45,000 feet, not an unreasonable altitude for an AIM-9 to be launched, you can go way more than 11 miles. In any case, statistically it isn't important where the missile falls to earth, if it doesn't self destruct it does fall to earth and then you roll the dice on the statistics and see if it hits anyone.

Nobody, outside of movies, fires off a missile as a countermeasure, they are way too expensive and you are going to need them to kill the bad guy who fired at you. It also wouldn't work, modern seakers are far too sophisticated to be fooled into thinking a missile is a hot jet engine. Modern IR seakers are looking for something that is the right sort of temperature to be an engine, or an airframe, they can track on skin heat, that is moving in an appropriate way. A missile firing off into the distance won't be a convincing target.

Sidewinders also run out of fuel long before they reach their effective range, so they aren't going to give up just because they aren't accelerating any more.

My friends worked on the ASRAAM breakup unit, but that was for trials.

Answer 2

The people who REALLY know are the missile engineers, so come on guys ... 'fes up. Tell us the REAL skinny. I should think, in case of a miss or 'out of fuel' situation you'd alway want the missile to self-destruct and not go off thinking on its own. It's not uncommon for artillery or mortar warheads to be found undetonated but when have you ever heard of a sparrow or sidewinder warhead being found? I think never. Also, when have you read, "Farmhouse mysteriously explodes. Errant sidewinder suspected as there was a dogfight going on in the skies at the time." Also, never.

Answer 3

1. They won't blow up unless triggered by the proxinity fuse.

2. We (U.S.) don't fire another missle for the heat seeker to chase. We have Electronic Warfare systems that launch flares or emit I/R heat when a missile is fired at one of our airplanes.

3. Our AIM-9 heatseeker is only good for 11 miles, that's not a very long flight time at Mach 2.5.

BTW Chris H, the 11 miles is the range of the missile. It is only a close range weapon when involving fighters.

Answer 4

Gone with the wind!
Only Rafael's Python IV has claims of attempting to reacquire a missed target and that too with limited success. Else its one shot, the momentum of the missile combined with the unpredictability of the maneuvering target's position would make reacquisition really pain.

Its not practical to let the missile loose to pick its own targets if it misses one. The combat dynamics and current data processing power just doesnt allow it, yet!

Seriously Gandalf, you should be more concerned about unfortunate people down there if the missile actually hits the target?
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As an add-on, Chris H knows what he is talking about.

Answer 5

No, the long one is close but when the heat seeker missles miss their originating target they were destined to hit, they immediately search for a new target that has heat enough for them to attack and if its closer it would go after it, in the air, theres nothing else BUT the plane you want to hit so in that case it would just lock back on and come around again for a second shot unless the plane releases something that the heat locks on thats hotter than the plane then it will explode on impact on it.

Answer 6

all the answers u just got were all wrong............the correct answer is that if once a heat seeking mesile misses its target it goes after the same target again and the only way to escape from it is either u use the anti heat seeking mesile control( another mesile is launched so that the heat seeking mesile follows the messile u launched )and the other way is very risky and dangerous..........the other way is to turn off the engine for as long as u think u can switch it on before u crash.........it is very rare that a heat seeking mesile runs out of fuel before it finishes its target but just in case it does happen it has a self-explode timer!!!!!!!

Answer 7

they run out of fuel and fall. others have a self destruct timer and explode.

Answer 8

they'll lock on to the next heat source in their scope and fly towards it until they run out of fuel, then drop to earth

Answer 9

They either find a new target (source of heat) or run out of fuel.

Answer 10

We all miss "The Tonight Show"