Curtiss-Wright TDU-12/B Skydart

The Curtiss-Wright TDU-12/B Skydart was an unguided target rocket that the Santa Barbara Division of Curtiss-Wright built for the United States Air Force, in operational use from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s. It was not a transport vehicle in the usual sense: its job was to give fighter crews a heat source to practise against with infrared homing air-to-air missiles such as the AIM-9 Sidewinder and AIM-4 Falcon. The Skydart had a small cylindrical body with four cruciform tail fins for control and fixed forward canards that set its trajectory, a gyroscopic autopilot, and an infrared flare for signature enhancement, and it could carry telemetry. A dual-thrust boost-sustain solid-propellant motor drove it. It was launched from F-100 Super Sabre and F-104 Starfighter fighters on the same rail and electrical connections used for the Sidewinder, at speeds between Mach 0.8 and 2.0, and flew for about 110 seconds in service. Proposals for a ground-launched version and an enlarged target drone were not developed.