MIT/Bell AAM-N-5 Meteor

Interesting. Are there any reports available that go into detail about the Meteor's guidance and control circuitry?
 
NMaude said:
Interesting. Are there any reports available that go into detail about the Meteor's guidance and control circuitry?
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I wasn't able to turn up much. MIT & BAC (Bell) produced dozens of "Meteor Reports" in the late-40s/early-50s on a variety of subjects such as supersonic diffusers, flame stabilization, shocks, boundary layers and fuels. They turn up in the references of hundreds of articles and papers but unfortunately not in their own right. Others may have more luck. My main take away is that although this program never yielded an operational weapon, the research carried out under it's auspices seems to have been quite comprehensive and worthwhile!

I did manage to turn up 2 items with some small relevance. An ad for gyros that makes mention of the Meteor:
https://archive.org/details/Aviation_Week_1956-01-16/page/n52/mode/1up?q=meteor
A paper with some information on Meteor seekers (P29):
https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.904.1817&rep=rep1&type=pdf
ETA: Found this paper which was declassified by the Bureau of Naval Weapons, successor to BuOrd which authorized the Meteor, so perhaps of relevance/interest?
https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/44467/30567475-MIT.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y
 
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https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/abs/10.2514/6.2005-700

METEOR (XAAM-N-5)

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge Dynamic Analysis and Control Laboratory, and Flight Control Laboratory developed the XAAM-N-5 METEOR air-to-air missile under contract to the Navy’s Bureau of Ordnance. Bell Aircraft Company was contracted separately to provide missiles and technical support. The primary mission for Meteor-equipped, carrier-based aircraft was to be defense of a Navy Carrier Task Force against nearsonic threat aircraft, singly or in groups day or night regardless of weather at altitudes from sea level to 60,000 feet.

Combat air patrol aircraft, such as A2J or A3D as well as high-speed interceptor aircraft, such as F4D were considered as launch aircraft.

The P-5 seeker for the METEOR was captive flight-tested under the wing of a JD-1 aircraft at Bedford. Two F3D aircraft were configured as the METEOR launch aircraft for missile launches at NAMTC at the Bedford Flight Facility. Hughes AN/APG-37 radars were installed along with APA-84 ballistic computers. Modification of these units was kept to a minimum for use as the METEOR fire control system.

Prototype missiles were flight tested at the Naval Air Missile Test Center at Point Mugu, California. One airborne vehicle launching was made on July 26, 1953. Four airborne vehicle launchings were made, including one completely guided vehicle, early in 1954. Prior to the flight tests, a number of ground-launchings of test vehicles were made, the first on December 19, 1951 at the Naval Ordnance Test Station, NOTS, China Lake, California.

There were a number of system requirement studies and various component studies. However, the project was canceled in 1954, in favor of SPARROW missile programs.
 
This Bell patent from 1954 has a missile which looks suspiciously like it could be Meteor with attached booster.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US3132590A
US3132590-drawings-page-1.jpg

The seeker system of the missile is a semi-active phase comparison radar seeker designed to home on target radar-echo signals. The target illumination is provided by radar from the launching aircraft. The seeker obtains a measure of the angular velocity of line of sight to the target, by measuring the relative phase rate of signals received at spaced antennas designated 40 mounted on the tips of the missile canard vanes 42. one pair of antennas relates to control of the craft in pitch, while the other pair relates to the yaw control. The information received by the antennas is converted into sensed voltage for the autopilot mechanism. This sensed voltage is supplied to the autopilot as an error v signal and is proportional to the approximate algebraic difference of the angular velocity of the line of sight relative to the missile longitudinal axis, and of the angular velocity of the missile.
 
Bell Meteor, for Navy BuOrd. Meteor originated under a contract with Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a missile; MIT was to call in other companies for development and production of laboratory items. In with MIT were Federal Telecommunications Lab, where the guidance system was developed, and Bell Aircraft Corp., where Meteor was to be built. The missile weighed about 500 lb., was propelled by a liquid—rocket engine and carried a 25Ib. warhead at a speed of Mach 3.0. The project was reported canceled last summer.
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AWST 15 March 1954
 
From "Magnificent Mavericks"

https://www.google.co.nz/books/edition/Magnificent_Mavericks/yoDfAAAAMAAJ
The end of Lark testing did not slow the pace of range work at NOTS, where tests of other missile programs were also going on. Two versions of the semiactive-radar-guided Meteor missile, each with its own type of propulsion system, were being developed under the technical direction of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Bell Aircraft Corporation and the Federal Telecommunications Laboratory were working on Meteor I, with its solid-propellant booster rocket to push it up to flight speed and its solid-propellant propulsion system to sustain it in flight. The longer-range United Aircraft Corporation version, Meteor II, was to have a solid-propellant booster rocket and to be sustained by ramjet. NOTS provided range and launching facilities, equipment for flight preparations, meteorological observations, and flight-test instrumentation for Meteor tests. The stations assessment group assisted Bell with data reduction and computation methods. Fifteen Meteor I flights occurred over a three-year period beginning in November 1948 when the first experimental test vehicle for Meteor was launched from G-1 Range.

meteor.jpg

Meteor missile and booster on launcher, G-1 Range launching area, 20 July 1949.
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