A man-portable surface to air missile (or SAM) used by the US Army to shoot down enemy aircraft. Because the Army hasn't operated without USAF air superiority since Vietnam, none have been fired in combat.
Originally called the REDEYE II, it was scheduled to replace the REDEYE in 1971. It was renamed "Stinger" in 1972, and the contract for engineering development was awarded to General Dynamics that June.
The Stinger is also pretty good as currency in politically/economically unstable countries with tinpot dictators or insane despots. There are roughly 250 Stingers to the Huey, although exchange rates vary based on local flying conditions.
The Stinger starts in a compact form (for easy storage and transport) but extends to a few feet long when 'deployed'. Deployment is achieved by flinging it accurately across the road. Considerable practice is required to correctly deploy the Stinger. Throw it wrong, and the spikes will end up laying along the road surface rather than pointing correctly upwards. Having thrown the Stinger correctly across the road in front of an approaching (stolen) car, the police officer must then retract the Stinger before his/her colleagues, the pursuing police officers, drive over it and pierce their own tyres.
The spikes which constitute the effective weaponry of the Stinger are actually hollow tubes, which are cunningly designed to break away from the base of the device. This results in fast Joyrider tyre deflation. According to the manufacturer, Federal Signal Corporation, the average car tyre will deflate in 10 to 20 seconds, resulting in a safer chase.
Jane's magazine estimates that the Taliban have at least a few functional Stingers, an assessment shared by independent sources, including Andrew Gembara, a former U.S. Army special forces officer who is familiar with Afghanistan. He fears that mujahedin veterans may have already smuggled Stingers -- or old Russian SAMs, which are of limited use against modern military aircraft but deadly against a 747 -- into the United States. "The missile for a SAM is slightly bigger than a baseball bat," he says. "The Stingers are somewhat larger but you could put one in a car trunk or a truck."--from http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/09/22/blowback/print.html
--from http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/09/22/blowback/print.html
A stinger is also the final note in many pieces of music (most often marches or upbeat pieces for a sports pep band). It's seperated from what is otherwise the end of the song, and is often louder than the rest, or at least more accented. Hard to mistake, if you know what it is. Listen to a Sousa march and there's a good chance you'll catch it.
At launch, a launching charge pushes the missile out of the tube (breaking the tube seals) and several feet away from the launcher, at which point the booster motor fires. The Stinger round will reach velocities in excess of 1200mph at its maximum range. The missile guides itself during flight in a variety of ways, depending on the missile variant. All models have an impact ('hit-to-kill') fuzing system, as well as an end-of-run self-destruct.
The Basic Stinger (FIM-92A) is effective out to approximately 4,000-4,500 meters. It uses a basic passive infrared seeker with a linear reticle scan pattern, with analog single-component signal processing to discriminate between an aircraft signature and background clutter. The Stinger-POST (FIM-92B) adds an ultraviolet sensor, for a two-signal lock; in addition, its seeker scans in a 'rosette' pattern for better coverage of the field of view and better performance against maneuvering targets. Finally, the POST model incorporates digital signal processing (DSP) into the missile for better discrimination against countermeasures and environmental noise. The third model, known as the Stinger-RMP (FIM-92C) contains reprogrammable microprocessor systems (cool TLA, huh?) which allow it to be updated in order to handle newer threat signatures or countermeasures over time.
The Stinger is also used in a 'mounted' form. The U.S. Army built an air-defense vehicle called Avenger which consisted of a .50-caliber machine gun mounted on a turret between two vehicular missile launchers. Each launcher holds four packaged Stinger rounds. The assembly is mounted on a HMMWV chassis, and is used against helicopter threats and/or low-flying fixed-wing aircraft. There is a variant certified for use on helicopters called Air-to-Air Stinger; there are also installations aboard naval vessels. The missile has been both sold abroad (FMS) as well as entered licensed production (by Switzerland, for example). In 1985, the number of Stingers produced passed the 10,000 mark.
During the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the CIA distributed approximately 1,000 Stingers of various types to the Afghani mujahedin for use in their fight against the Red Army. The resistance fighters managed to score around a 60% hit rate against Soviet helicopters. However, only half, or perhaps less, of these weapons were actually expended during the conflict. The U.S. (the CIA and the military) offered a 'buy-back' program after the conflict, indicating that they would pay up to $35,000 per missile for all those returned to the U.S. However, by that point the price of these proven weapons on the black market was much, much higher, and few were recovered.
There are conflicting stories about how many remain on the world arms market, as well as how hard the U.S. agencies involved really tried to retrieve them after the Soviets withdrew. Some have claimed that there is a tremendous danger to U.S. and other nations' commercial aviation from these remaining missiles; they point to instances in which Soviet versions (the SAM-7, notably) have been used to down passenger aircraft. A shoot-down of a Boeing 737 in the Congo is perhaps the most widely-cited example. The danger arises from the fact that the Stinger is a completely self-contained weapon, designed to be used with minimal training, with a long shelf life. It is small enough to place in the trunk of a large car in assembled form, or disassembled can be packed into suitcase-sized containers. Terrorists might conceivably smuggle a Stinger or three into the U.S. to use on American passenger airliners, or even Air Force One if they could get close enough. The government of Colombia received warnings in the 1980s that local guerrillas planned to assassinate the president of that country by using SAM-7 rockets against his plane. They put protection in place (guarding approaches, decoy aircraft, etc.) and nothing happened. However, some months later, several SAM-7s were found in a captured rebel stronghold, indicating that the threat was at least plausible.
There are a few things to keep in mind when applying this to the current situation. First of all, just because they're small doesn't mean that the Stinger components are easy to smuggle. You'd probably have to drive them in from Canada or Mexico, or bring them aboard a ship. This latter is most likely, since a ship or boat could also be used to launch the missile against coastal city air traffic. However, they are designed to attack close-in low-flying targets. Therefore, in order to hit a civilian airliner, the launcher would (realistically) need to be within two miles of the aircraft's liftoff point; once the target has lifted above 5,000 feet, it is fairly safe from shoulder-fired weapons.
More importantly, the consumables in the Stinger system degrade over time. Those given to the mujahedin were transferred in 1981, making them twenty years old. Batteries for electronics and liquified gases for coolant both will escape or run flat. While batteries might be easily replaced, the act of doing so will involve 'unsealing' a missile round, modifying it, and repackaging it. While this is not impossible, it is not easily accomplished either; at least, not in such a way that the user can be relatively sure the missile will function. IR seekers are extremely sensitive to damage, contaminants, and other environmental hazards.
So, is there a threat? Sure. Is that threat unique to stingers? Nope. The SAM-7 and other Eastern Bloc MANPADS systems work too, and they're out there in greater numbers. While some have been used, we have not yet seen their use by terrorists in an essentially non-combat zone.
Some stats, to finish up:
The first stinger appeared at the end of episode #205, Rocket Attack USA. Episode #207, Wild Rebels, did not feature a stinger. Fan speculation is that Best Brains simply forgot to add one. The stingers continued to appear at the end of the show until season 8, when episodes #805-807 (The Thing That Couldn't Die, The Undead, and Terror From The Year 5000) replaced the stingers with a clip of the Observers from the host segments holding their brains up to the camera. Episode #808, The She Creature, also did not feature a stinger. This time it was replaced with Professor Bobo (another host segment character) having fallen on to a planet.
Beginning with episode #809, I Was A Teenage Werewolf, the stingers returned and continued until the series finale, episode #1013 (Diabolik).
Furthermore, the stinger was missing from the Rhino Home Video release of episode #518, The Atomic Brain. Best Brains claims that the stinger was present on the master copy sent to Rhino, wheras Rhino claims it wasn't.
References: http://www.mst3kinfo.com has everything a good MSTie could want.
A stinger is a kind of alcoholic drink, or rather several kinds of entirely different make. Originally it was simply whisky and soda, half and half, much savoured by the British in Malaya, and the name comes from the Malay word setengah, 'half'. This mixed drink is also written as stengah or stingah.
The other kind of cocktail is so entirely different from a whisky-and-soda that I imagine it must be an independent invention, and perhaps given its coincidental name because it stings. This is brandy and creme de menthe, properly white or clear creame de menthe, with the brandy tending to predominate in quantity (recipes out there on the Web vary between 1:1 and 4:1).
These are not to be confused with a another alcohol with a sting, namely stingo, a kind of thick strong beer.
Then we get variations on these. The Louisville stinger sounds a bit stinging: bourbon, rum, creme de menthe, and creme de cacao. A royal stinger is a hybrid of the two stingers, whisky and white creme de menthe. Another possibility is to add vodka to the... well of course you can add anything you like, quite frankly; if you've got creme de menthe in there as a base you're not likely to be over-finicky about what else goes into it. So an amaretto stinger is creme de menthe and... urp, excuse me, gotta rush...
Sting"er (?), n.
One who, or that which, stings.
Professor E. Forbes states that only a small minority of the medusae of our seas are stingers. Owen.
© Webster 1913.
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