The AGM-79 Blue Eye was an

air-to-ground missile An air-to-surface missile (ASM) or air-to-ground missile (AGM) is a missile designed to be launched from military aircraft at targets on land or sea. There are also unpowered guided glide bombs not considered missiles. The two most common pro ...

prototype, developed by the United States in the 1960s.

Design and development

The Blue Eye was a development of the

AGM-12 Bullpup The AGM-12 Bullpup is a short-range air-to-ground missile developed by Martin Marietta for the US Navy. It is among the earliest precision guided air-to-ground weapons and the first to be mass produced. It first saw operational use in 1959 on the ...

, intended to provide a more advanced homing system. The Bullpup was manually steered onto the target, whereas the guidance system in the Blue Eye was an optical area correlation seeker. A

TV camera A professional video camera (often called a television camera even though its use has spread beyond television) is a high-end device for creating electronic moving images (as opposed to a movie camera, that earlier recorded the images on filmstoc ...

in the missile's nose provided an image to the pilot; he used this to select the target and lock the missile on before firing. Once launched the area correlation system could detect any deviation of the picture compared to the locked image and correct the missile's course accordingly. The Blue Eye used the same airframe as the AGM-12C/E. A radar

altimeter An altimeter or an altitude meter is an instrument used to measure the altitude of an object above a fixed level. The measurement of altitude is called altimetry, which is related to the term bathymetry, the measurement of depth under water. Ty ...

was fitted to allow the warhead to explode in an air burst mode. Firing trials took place in late 1968, with the prototype missile designated XAGM-79A. After several years of development the missile was cancelled in the early 1970s.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Agm-79 Blue Eye Cold War air-to-surface missiles of the United States Abandoned military rocket and missile projects of the United States AGM-079