{"id":4938773,"date":"2026-07-11T12:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T10:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/jetflights\/?p=4938773"},"modified":"2026-09-04T09:16:46","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T07:16:46","slug":"taiwan-strait-1958-sidewinder-first-missile-kill-k-13-atoll","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/taiwan-strait-1958-sidewinder-first-missile-kill-k-13-atoll\/","title":{"rendered":"How a Dud Sidewinder Armed the Soviets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><style>.et_pb_title_container h1.entry-title { padding-top: 40px !important; }<\/style>\n<!-- mfsh:top -->\n\n<style>\n.mfsh-trigger{display:inline-flex;align-items:center;gap:10px;height:44px;padding:0 18px;margin:0 0 26px;border:2px solid #0F1720;background:#fff;color:#0F1720;font-family:inherit;font-size:14px;font-weight:700;line-height:1;letter-spacing:0;text-transform:none;cursor:pointer;box-shadow:none;transition:background .15s,color 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Then the Sabres did something no fighter had ever done in anger. They fired missiles.<\/p>\r\n<p>Trailing white smoke, the little heat-seekers chased the MiGs through their turns and detonated. In the space of a few minutes the world had its first air-to-air guided-missile kills, and air combat changed forever. The weapon was the American AIM-9 Sidewinder, and its debut over the strait would echo in a way nobody in either cockpit could have imagined.<\/p>\r\n<p>Because a few days later, one of those Sidewinders buried itself in a MiG-17 <em>without going off<\/em> \u2014 and handed the Soviet Union a free masterclass in missile design.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f5f5f5; border-radius: 8px; padding: 20px 22px; margin: 24px 0; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.8;\"><strong style=\"font-size: 17px;\">Quick Facts<\/strong><br \/>\u2022 <strong>Event:<\/strong> first combat use of air-to-air guided missiles<br \/>\u2022 <strong>Date &amp; place:<\/strong> 24 September 1958, Taiwan Strait (Second Taiwan Strait Crisis)<br \/>\u2022 <strong>Combatants:<\/strong> ROCAF F-86F Sabres with US-supplied AIM-9B Sidewinders vs PLAAF MiG-17s<br \/>\u2022 <strong>Result:<\/strong> multiple MiG-17s downed by Sidewinders \u2014 the first missile kills in history<br \/>\u2022 <strong>The twist:<\/strong> on 28 September an unexploded Sidewinder lodged in a MiG-17 and was recovered intact<br \/>\u2022 <strong>Legacy:<\/strong> reverse-engineered into the Soviet Vympel K-13 (NATO: AA-2 Atoll), in service by 1960; Chinese PL-2<br \/>\u2022 <strong>Designer:<\/strong> William B. McLean, US Naval Ordnance Test Station, China Lake \u2014 roughly 24 moving parts<\/div>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">A cheap little snake with a hot eye<\/h2>\r\n<p>The Sidewinder was the pet project of William B. McLean, a physicist at the Navy\u2019s China Lake test station in the California desert. While rival teams built big, complex, radar-guided missiles, McLean chased the opposite ideal: a weapon that homed on the heat of an enemy\u2019s exhaust, with almost nothing to break. The result had barely two dozen moving parts and a gas generator instead of batteries. It was so simple that skeptics inside the Navy doubted it would even work.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin: 0 0 24px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: auto; max-width: 100%; display: block; border-radius: 6px;\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/07\/aim-9b-sidewinder-seeker-head.jpg\" alt=\"AIM-9B Sidewinder seeker head\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" \/>\r\n<figcaption style=\"font-size: 13px; color: #777; text-align: center; margin-top: 6px; font-style: italic;\">The AIM-9B\u2019s infrared seeker head. The 1958 missile had roughly two dozen moving parts. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f8f9fa; border-left: 4px solid #5C91FF; padding: 20px 22px; margin: 18px 0 24px; border-radius: 0 8px 8px 0; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.7;\"><em>\u201cSimple, reliable, and inexpensive.\u201d<\/em>\r\n<div style=\"margin-top: 10px; font-size: 14px; color: #555;\"><strong>William B. McLean<\/strong> \u2014 the Sidewinder\u2019s inventor, on his design philosophy at China Lake<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">The first kills of the missile age<\/h2>\r\n<p>When the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis flared in 1958, Washington rushed a few dozen Sidewinders to Taiwan and sent a US team to bolt them onto the ROCAF\u2019s Sabres. The MiG-17 could out-climb the F-86, so the Nationalist pilots had spent months being bounced from above. The missile flipped the maths. On 24 September, the Sabres let the MiGs cruise past and then fired \u2014 and the heat-seekers ran them down. It was the first time in history a guided missile had killed an aircraft in combat.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; margin: 24px 0;\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border: 0; border-radius: 8px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jWkMS7msV5Y\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-no-lazy=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"display: flex; justify-content: center; margin: 2em 0;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"border: none; overflow: hidden; max-width: 100%;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/plugins\/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FCommemorativeAF%2Fposts%2F1219739800192234&amp;show_text=true&amp;width=500\" width=\"500\" height=\"600\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-no-lazy=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">The dud that armed the enemy<\/h2>\r\n<p>Then came the twist no war planner scripts. On 28 September, in another clash, a Sidewinder slammed into a MiG-17 and simply <em>failed to detonate<\/em>. The Chinese pilot nursed his jet home with a live American missile embedded in the airframe. Ground crews carefully extracted it \u2014 and once Moscow learned China had an intact Sidewinder, it pressed hard to get its hands on the prize.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin: 0 0 24px;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"width: 100%; height: auto; max-width: 100%; display: block; border-radius: 6px;\" src=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2026\/07\/mig-17-in-flight.jpg\" alt=\"Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17 in flight\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" \/>\r\n<figcaption style=\"font-size: 13px; color: #777; text-align: center; margin-top: 6px; font-style: italic;\">A MiG-17 \u2014 the type the Sidewinder was fired at, and the type that carried one home intact. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.<\/figcaption>\r\n<\/figure>\r\n\r\n<p>What the Soviets received was, in effect, a finished blueprint. Their engineers copied the infrared seeker, the steering and the stabilisation and produced the Vympel K-13 \u2014 NATO codename AA-2 \u201cAtoll\u201d \u2014 which entered service around 1960. China built its own version as the PL-2. For decades, MiGs and their copies flew into battle carrying near-clones of the very missile once fired at them.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f8f9fa; border-left: 4px solid #5C91FF; padding: 20px 22px; margin: 18px 0 24px; border-radius: 0 8px 8px 0; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.7;\"><em>\u201cThe Sidewinder missile was to us a university offering a course in missile construction technology which upgraded our engineering education.\u201d<\/em>\r\n<div style=\"margin-top: 10px; font-size: 14px; color: #555;\"><strong>Gennadiy Sokolovskiy<\/strong> \u2014 later chief engineer of the Soviet Vympel missile design bureau<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n<h2 style=\"padding-top: 22px;\">The weapon that never really left<\/h2>\r\n<p>More than sixty years on, the Sidewinder still serves on the front line in its latest AIM-9X form, and its Soviet and Chinese offspring soldiered on for generations. Few weapons can claim to have opened an entire era of warfare on their first day in combat \u2014 and fewer still can claim to have armed both sides of the Cold War at once. It began with a handful of cheap, desert-built snakes fired over a narrow strip of contested water in 1958.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<div style=\"position: relative; padding-bottom: 56.25%; height: 0; overflow: hidden; margin: 24px 0;\"><iframe class=\"skip-lazy\" style=\"position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; border: 0; border-radius: 8px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/PtP21pGufKQ\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-no-lazy=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\r\n\r\n<p style=\"font-size: 13px; color: #777; font-style: italic; margin-top: 20px;\">Sources: Wikipedia (AIM-9 Sidewinder; K-13 missile; Second Taiwan Strait Crisis); The War Zone (TWZ); National Air and Space Museum; contemporary accounts. Kill totals for the 1958 crisis vary between sources and are given as reported.<\/p>\n<!-- mfsh:bottom -->\n\n<button type=\"button\" class=\"mfsh-trigger mfsh-bottom\" data-mfsh-placement=\"bottom\" aria-haspopup=\"dialog\"><svg><use href=\"#mfsh-i-share\"\/><\/svg>Share this story<\/button>\n\n<!-- \/mfsh:bottom -->\n\r\n<!-- mf-faq -->\r\n\r\n\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-block\"><style>.mf-faq-block{margin:34px 0}.mf-faq-item:not([open]) .mf-faq-answer{display:none !important}.mf-faq-block h2.mf-faq-h{padding-top:22px;margin-bottom:14px}.mf-faq-item{border:1px solid #e2e8f5;border-radius:8px;margin:0 0 10px;background:#fff}.mf-faq-item summary{list-style:none;cursor:pointer;padding:15px 50px 15px 18px;font-weight:600;color:#1a1a1a;position:relative;line-height:1.45;user-select:none}.mf-faq-item summary::-webkit-details-marker{display:none}.mf-faq-item summary::after{content:\"+\";position:absolute;right:18px;top:50%;transform:translateY(-50%);font-size:1.5em;font-weight:400;color:#5C91FF;line-height:1}.mf-faq-item[open] summary::after{content:\"\\2013\"}.mf-faq-item[open] summary{border-bottom:1px solid #eef1f8}.mf-faq-item summary:hover{background:#f5f8ff}.mf-faq-answer{padding:14px 18px;color:#333;line-height:1.6}.mf-faq-answer p{margin:0}.mf-faq-answer a{color:#5C91FF}<\/style>\r\n<h2 class=\"mf-faq-h\">Related Questions<\/h2>\r\n<details class=\"mf-faq-item\">\r\n<summary>When was the first air-to-air missile kill in history?<\/summary>\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-answer\">\r\n<p>The first air-to-air guided-missile kills in history took place on 24 September 1958 over the Taiwan Strait, during the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis. Nationalist Chinese (ROCAF) F-86F Sabres fired US-supplied AIM-9B Sidewinder missiles at Communist Chinese MiG-17s and shot several down \u2014 the first time a guided missile had ever destroyed an aircraft in combat.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\">\r\n<summary>What was the AIM-9 Sidewinder missile?<\/summary>\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-answer\">\r\n<p>The AIM-9 Sidewinder is an American infrared-guided (heat-seeking) air-to-air missile developed by physicist William B. McLean at the US Naval Ordnance Test Station at China Lake, California. Deliberately simple \u2014 the early AIM-9B had roughly two dozen moving parts \u2014 it scored the first missile kills in history in 1958 and still serves today in its AIM-9X form.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\">\r\n<summary>How did the Soviet Union get the Sidewinder missile?<\/summary>\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-answer\">\r\n<p>On 28 September 1958, during the Taiwan Strait clashes, a Sidewinder struck a Communist Chinese <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/valentin-privalov-mig-17-bridge-1965\/\">MiG-17<\/a> but failed to detonate. The pilot flew home with the live missile embedded in his airframe, ground crews extracted it intact, and Moscow pressed China to hand over the prize \u2014 giving Soviet engineers a complete, working example of America's newest weapon.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\">\r\n<summary>What was the Soviet K-13 (AA-2 Atoll) missile?<\/summary>\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-answer\">\r\n<p>The Vympel K-13, NATO codename AA-2 Atoll, was the Soviet Union's reverse-engineered copy of the American AIM-9B Sidewinder. Built from an unexploded Sidewinder recovered from a MiG-17 in 1958, it copied the infrared seeker, steering, and stabilisation, and entered service around 1960. China produced its own version as the PL-2.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\">\r\n<summary>Who invented the Sidewinder missile?<\/summary>\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-answer\">\r\n<p>The Sidewinder was invented by William B. McLean, a physicist at the US Navy's China Lake test station in the California desert. While rival teams built large, complex radar-guided missiles, McLean pursued a cheap heat-seeking weapon with almost nothing to break \u2014 his design philosophy was \u201csimple, reliable, and inexpensive.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\">\r\n<summary>Why did F-86 Sabres carry missiles over the Taiwan Strait in 1958?<\/summary>\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-answer\">\r\n<p>When the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis flared in 1958, the PLAAF's MiG-17s could out-climb Taiwan's F-86F Sabres, so Nationalist pilots kept getting bounced from above. Washington rushed a few dozen AIM-9B Sidewinders to Taiwan with a US team to fit them, letting the Sabres kill from below \u2014 a story echoed across decades of <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/military-aviation-history-zeppelin-to-sixth-generation\/\">military aviation history<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\">\r\n<summary>Is the Sidewinder missile still in use today?<\/summary>\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-answer\">\r\n<p>Yes. More than sixty years after its 1958 combat debut, the Sidewinder remains front-line armament in its latest AIM-9X version. Its Soviet and Chinese derivatives \u2014 the K-13\/AA-2 Atoll and PL-2 \u2014 also served for generations, meaning both sides of the Cold War flew missiles descended from the same China Lake design, as US pilots learned flying <a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/constant-peg-red-eagles-secret-migs\/\">secret captured MiGs<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/details><details class=\"mf-faq-item\">\r\n<summary>What was the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis?<\/summary>\r\n<div class=\"mf-faq-answer\">\r\n<p>The Second Taiwan Strait Crisis was a 1958 confrontation between Communist China (PRC) and Nationalist China (Taiwan\/ROC), backed by the United States, over the Taiwan Strait and offshore islands. Its air battles between ROCAF F-86 Sabres and PLAAF MiG-17s produced the world's first air-to-air guided-missile kills in September 1958.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/details><\/div>\r\n<p><script type=\"application\/ld+json\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"FAQPage\",\"mainEntity\":[{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"When was the first air-to-air missile kill in history?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The first air-to-air guided-missile kills in history took place on 24 September 1958 over the Taiwan Strait, during the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis. Nationalist Chinese (ROCAF) F-86F Sabres fired US-supplied AIM-9B Sidewinder missiles at Communist Chinese MiG-17s and shot several down \u2014 the first time a guided missile had ever destroyed an aircraft in combat.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What was the AIM-9 Sidewinder missile?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The AIM-9 Sidewinder is an American infrared-guided (heat-seeking) air-to-air missile developed by physicist William B. McLean at the US Naval Ordnance Test Station at China Lake, California. 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While rival teams built large, complex radar-guided missiles, McLean pursued a cheap heat-seeking weapon with almost nothing to break \u2014 his design philosophy was \u201csimple, reliable, and inexpensive.\u201d\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Why did F-86 Sabres carry missiles over the Taiwan Strait in 1958?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"When the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis flared in 1958, the PLAAF's MiG-17s could out-climb Taiwan's F-86F Sabres, so Nationalist pilots kept getting bounced from above. Washington rushed a few dozen AIM-9B Sidewinders to Taiwan with a US team to fit them, letting the Sabres kill from below \u2014 a story echoed across decades of <a href=\\\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/military-aviation-history-zeppelin-to-sixth-generation\/\\\">military aviation history<\/a>.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"Is the Sidewinder missile still in use today?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"Yes. More than sixty years after its 1958 combat debut, the Sidewinder remains front-line armament in its latest AIM-9X version. Its Soviet and Chinese derivatives \u2014 the K-13\/AA-2 Atoll and PL-2 \u2014 also served for generations, meaning both sides of the Cold War flew missiles descended from the same China Lake design, as US pilots learned flying <a href=\\\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/constant-peg-red-eagles-secret-migs\/\\\">secret captured MiGs<\/a>.\"}},{\"@type\":\"Question\",\"name\":\"What was the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis?\",\"acceptedAnswer\":{\"@type\":\"Answer\",\"text\":\"The Second Taiwan Strait Crisis was a 1958 confrontation between Communist China (PRC) and Nationalist China (Taiwan\/ROC), backed by the United States, over the Taiwan Strait and offshore islands. Its air battles between ROCAF F-86 Sabres and PLAAF MiG-17s produced the world's first air-to-air guided-missile kills in September 1958.\"}}]}<\/script><!-- \/mf-faq -->\r\n\r\n\r\n<div style=\"background: #f0f4ff; border-left: 4px solid #5C91FF; padding: 16px 20px; margin: 32px 0 8px; border-radius: 0 8px 8px 0;\">\r\n<p style=\"margin: 0 0 8px; font-weight: 600; color: #333;\">Related Posts<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"margin: 4px 0;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/gulf-of-sidra-f14-tomcat-shootdowns-libya-1981-1989\/\">Tomcats 4, Gaddafi 0: The Gulf of Sidra Shootdowns<\/a><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"margin: 4px 0;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/migflug.com\/afterburner\/chaff-flares-countermeasures-how-jets-defeat-missiles\/\">How Jets Trick Missiles Into Missing<\/a><\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 1958 the AIM-9 Sidewinder scored history\u2019s first air-to-air missile kills over the Taiwan Strait. Then a dud handed the Soviets a free copy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":4938277,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[666,664],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4938773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history-and-legends","category-military-aviation"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Taiwan Strait 1958: The First Sidewinder Kill<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Over the Taiwan Strait in 1958, the AIM-9 Sidewinder scored the first air-to-air missile kill, and handed the Soviets their K-13 Atoll.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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