Look at the rear on this Hawk MIM-23

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Pem Tech

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OK, while not working the other day I ran across a decent reference site with some photos I had not seen before.
https://postwarv2.com/

One image in particular has me puzzled. And look, here it is...
js640_army_hawk_02.jpg

Hawk MIM-23

The photo is from this page.
https://www.postwarv2.com/armyhawk/photos.html

Now the puzzling bit...
This photo shows the Hawk with an engine bell below the aft of the missile, which is something I had never seen before. Every photo I have seen, up to know, shows a transition to a plain aft section, like you would expect for solid propellant. So, is this a liquid fueled version or something else?
Hope someone can shed some light on this.
 
I'm just guessing here, but if you look at the drawings for the Nike Smoke, you will see that it does have an engine bell that is covered by a conical shroud. The Aerobee Hi/150/150A/300/300A also used a solid booster with the engine bell showing. My guess is that the aft shroud is removed here for some reason, maintenance maybe.
 
I'm just guessing here, but if you look at the drawings for the Nike Smoke, you will see that it does have an engine bell that is covered by a conical shroud. The Aerobee Hi/150/150A/300/300A also used a solid booster with the engine bell showing. My guess is that the aft shroud is removed here for some reason, maintenance maybe.

I"ll ask my dad, Thursday. He was in a Hawk battery for 15 years, '74-'89.
 
All solid motors have a converging-diverging nozzle, just like liquid fuel, it's just typically covered by a shroud or integrated into the back of the motor. I'd guess that that's the standard nozzle, just with no shroud.
 
That is puzzling, especially when looking at the other pictures on that page...which show the shrouds and which do not appear to project as far aft of the control surfaces as they would have to to cover the nozzles shown in the pic you posted. Love to hear from the fellow whose father was in a Hawk battery.
 
I would almost guess it is some sort of funky motor plug and not the actual motor.
 
I would think that the Hawk motor could easily have changed over time. Thus, some pictures may look different. I know at one time there was a competition to make a new or improved dual pulse motor between different solid rocket manufacturers.

Agreed, for compressible supersonic flow, all motors either liquid or solid use a convergent-divergent nozzle.

Bob
 
I think it was some sort of prototype/experimental motor. The nozzle extends too far aft from any field battery I've ever seen. I don't think a shroud/cone would make it look any shorter, more like a standard Hawk. Like I said, I'll see what my dad's got to say tomorrow.
 
My dad is pretty sure it's a early test model and never entered service in that configuration. More than likely, the picture was taken at Ft. Bliss; it is the Army air defense school. Hawk RnD was at McGregor Range and White Sands. We lived in El Paso for 10+ years. The flat desert landscape with the mountains in the background is strong evidence of the El Paso area.
 
Look carefully at the two side by side photos.

Notice where the conduit ends at the rear.

It looks like a section of tail cone is removed or missing on the missiles in the left photo.

For me...problem solved.

hawks.jpg
 
OK, the conduit does look clser to the end of the tailcone in the right hand pic than the left, but look at the distance from the rear of the fin to the back. Doesn't seem to me like an extra length of tailcone would give the same overall profile.

Sandy.
 
I am pretty sure the two Hawks Sandman posted pix of are two variants. The Hawk and the improved Hawk had slightly different fin configurations and varied slightly in length.
 
There was also a Super Hawk in RnD that never really made it very far even into protyping. It had a nuclear warhead but the effective range of the missile didn't send it far enough away for the battery to be safe enough. It was about 2 feet longer than the hawk.

The I-MIM-23B (I for improved) didn't make the tail noticeably longer or shorter, certainly not the difference for the photos in comparison. As stated before, it's probably a prototype/alpha/beta from the 50's or early 60's. It's not just an illusion from a removed tail cone. Again, this is information from my father, who worked on these for 15 years, about 9 of those at Ft. Bliss and the other years in Germany.
 
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They found a better way to keep Copperheads inserted in the motor.
 
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