Zen, my understanding from reading Forbat was that Govt. were desperate for Vickers to take Red Dean on as the Company Most Likely To Succeed after Folland chucked it in (according to Gibson/Buttler, because Petter was distracted by his pet project that evolved into the Gnat fighter), and that Vickers did their utmost to (unsuccessfully) refuse. And that furthermore, when the project went over to Vickers, the radar homing head contract went from EK Coles to GEC. Thanks for clarifying the structural/tactical differences between the two missiles. (In the words of Homer Simpson - D'oh!)
Jemiba, I'll have to try to find Gunston's book (Forbat appears to have read it while working on his own), but certainly Forbat (who was intimately involved in the project, and gives data current to 2006) gives the idea that Red Dean's own radar was locked onto the target before the trigger was pulled, and thus it was active homing for the entire flight (hence its miserably short range of 10,000yd, because that's all the homing head could deal with). He goes into detail on airframe shielding of the seeker, e.g. problems associated with firing the starboard missile against a target to port, when such a target would be blanked out by the nose of the fighter, and whether the missile could be relied on to lock-up after launch. So active-all-the-way seems the safest bet.
Does anyone know of other references, particularly where I might find detail regarding the early development work carried out by Folland? We are offered tantalizing glimpses and details, including a VERY primitive missile design with long, rectangular wings on the wingtips of a Meteor, but I'd give my eye teeth for an account of Follands' work to match Forbat's account of what went on at Vickers.
Overscan, I agree with your comments - IMO also, ARH was pursued as the acme of perfection, whereas weapon development is the art of the possible. Tactically, Fighter Command were right to want a launch-and-leave missile, but in asking for it to be ARH (?? for all-aspect advantages), they were asking the near impossible from the technology of the day. On the other hand, if you look at Red Dean/Red Hebe as the British counterpart not of AIM-7 but of AIM-54, you have to ask yourself what the British might have made of it given an in-service due date of 1972 instead of 1960 or so...