What happens to the wire after launching a fly-by-wire missile?
In: Engineering
The main US land guided missile I used was a TOW (Tube Launched, Optically Guided, Wire Tracked). It uses a thin, just a hour thinner than a human hair, copper wire to transmit your inputs to the missile. In combat we just left the copper wire. It’s not really a hazard, and woukd slowly be covered with sand. Depending on the base, some US training bases would have you cut the remaining wire from the spool, then go roll up what was left, though with a live warhead range you just left it do to the chance of UEO (Un Exploded Ordinance). The only other wire guided missiles, as we are moving to fire and forget, are US ADCAP torpedoes, which use a fiber optic cable in the latest models, though they to used to use copper.
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