FIM-92 Stinger, US Surface to Air Missile

The FIM-92 Stinger is a personal portable infrared homing surface-to-air missile (SAM) developed in the United States and entered into service in 1981. Used by the militaries of the U.S. and by 29 other countries, the basic Stinger missile has to-date been responsible for 270 confirmed aircraft kills. It is manufactured by Raytheon Missile Systems and under license by EADS in Germany, with 70,000 missiles produced. It is classified as a Man-Portable Air-Defense System (MANPADS).

Stinger
Type	Manportable surface-to-air missile
Place of origin	United States
Service history
In service	1981–present
Used by	See Operators
Wars	Falklands War, Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Angolan Civil War, Kargil War, Yugoslav Wars, Invasion of Grenada
Production history
Designer	General Dynamics
Designed	1967
Manufacturer	Raytheon Missile Systems
Unit cost	US$38,000
Produced	1978
Variants	FIM-92A, FIM-92B, FIM-92C, FIM-92D, FIM-92G
Specifications (FIM-92 Stinger)
Weight	15.2 kg
Length	1.52 m
Diameter	70 mm
Crew	1
Effective range	8 kilometres (5.0 mi) (FIM-92C Stinger-RMP Block II)
Warhead weight	3 kg
Engine	Solid Rocket Motor
Guidance system	Infrared homing
Launch platform	MANPADS, M6 Linebacker, Eurocopter Tiger, AN/TWQ-1 Avenger, MQ-1 Predator, AH-64 Apache

FIM-92 Stinger is light to carry and easy to operate, the FIM-92 Stinger is a passive surface-to-air missile, shoulder-fired by a single operator, although officially it requires two. The FIM-92B can attack aircraft at a range of up to 15,700 feet (4,800 m) and at altitudes between 600 and 12,500 feet (180 and 3,800 m). The missile can also be fired from the M-1097 Avenger and M6 Linebacker. The missile is also capable of being deployed from HMMWV Stinger rack, and can be used by paratroopers. A helicopter launched version exists called Air-to-Air Stinger (ATAS).

The missile is 1.52 m (60") long and 70 mm (2-3/4") in diameter with 10 cm fins. The missile itself weighs 10.1 kg (22 lbs.), while the missile with launcher weighs approximately 15.2 kg (33.5 pounds). The Stinger is launched by a small ejection motor that pushes it a safe distance from the operator before engaging the main two-stage solid-fuel sustainer, which accelerates it to a maximum speed of Mach 2.2 (750 m/s). The warhead is a 3 kg penetrating hit-to-kill warhead type with an impact fuze and a self-destruct timer.

To fire the missile, a BCU (Battery Coolant Unit) is inserted into the handguard. This shoots a stream of argon gas into the system, as well as a chemical energy charge that enables the acquisition indicators and missile to get power. The batteries are somewhat sensitive to abuse, with a limited amount of gas. Over time, and without proper maintenance, they can become unserviceable. The IFF system receives power from a rechargeable battery. Guidance to the target is initially through proportional navigation, then switches to another mode that directs the missile towards the target airframe instead of its exhaust plume.

There are three main variants in use: the Stinger basic, STINGER-Passive Optical Seeker Technique (POST), and STINGER-Reprogrammable Microprocessor (RMP).

The Stinger-RMP is so-called because of its ability to load a new set of software via ROM chip inserted in the grip at the depot. If this download to the missile fails during power-up, basic functionality runs off the on-board ROM. The four-processor RMP has 4K of RAM for each processor; since the downloaded code runs from RAM, there is little space to spare, particularly for processors dedicated to seeker input processing and target analysis. The RMP has a dual-detector seeker: IR and UV. This allows it to distinguish targets from countermeasures much better than the Redeye, which was IR-only.