The Sky Sword I, Tien Chien I, or TC-1 (Chinese: 天劍一; pinyin: Tiān Jiàn Yī; Wade–Giles: Tʻien1 Chien4 I1) is a short range infrared guided air-to-air missile. The missile has fire and forget slave-by-radar capabilities. It consists of an imaging infrared seeker, a high explosive warhead, a solid propellant motor and a guidance control unit.[1] The seeker uses dual spectral IR and has a detection range of 18.5km.[2]
The Sky Sword 1 is also used as a surface-to-air missile by the Antelope air defence system.[3][4]
Development
The Sky Sword 1 was developed in the mid-1980s and revealed in May 1986, as Taiwan's first indigenous air-to-air missile.[5] The production of the missile started in 1991 and the air-to-air version entered ROCAF service in 1993. It bears a striking similarity to the American AIM-9 (also in Taiwanese service) and fulfills a similar role on the Indigenous Defense Fighter to the AIM-9 on the F-16. In 2017 NCSIST exhibited a variant of the TC-1 with a larger diameter motor.[6]
Service history
TC-1 missiles were employed during a 2019 training exercise off Taiwan’s east coast.[7]
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