Battle Fight direct from Germany.
Boss had secretly allocated JP to QRA. Hooter goes, but Q2 aircraft mistakenly allocated; and everyone forgot that Q2 was the Sqn runt, christmases tree - it will never be used.
Radar fails en route, PAS fails entering the range; survival knife to cut string on chinagraph pencil; fixed cross on PAS reflector, 100% success.
'
Firestreak was much more basic than Red Top, but also went bang more reliably.'
Not bad for a design which started pre 1950, no major modifications or variants; vacuum valve technology - fixed in jelly, and 30+ years inservice.
The Lightning-Firestreak combination had a commendable success rate when evaluated as a complete system from aircraft startup to shoot down. Many of the failures reported above involved unproven fusing problems where the towed flare pack began to break up, the shedded particles did not affect the guidance but could trigger an early fuse. Much development work on flare packs carried out.
Conversely the US missiles did not match the expected (salesman) success rates using the total system analysis. A two week sojourn to China Lake and Pt Magu identified that the US only considered events after trigger press, and even then some firings were declared 'no test' for other reasons, lack of photo, telemetry, switch pigs.
An unusual high angle-off shot, probably AIM-7, expanding ring warhead - and somewhat off course.
