FIM-92 Stinger: The CIA Buyback, Car Battery Hacks and Obsolete Microchips

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The FIM-92 Stinger, introduced in 1981, is a shoulder-fired missile in a roughly 35-pound tube that reaches over Mach 2.5 and hits targets up to 15,700 feet away. It replaced the FIM-43 Redeye, which could only chase an aircraft's exhaust after it had already passed overhead. The Stinger's all-aspect seeker sees heat from air friction on the nose and wings, and later POST and RMP variants added a dual infrared and ultraviolet seeker that rejects flares. A small ejection motor kicks the missile clear of the gunner before the main motor fires, a battery coolant unit chills the seeker with pressurized argon, the processor runs on four kilobytes of RAM, and the missile self-destructs after 17 seconds without a hit.

After a limited debut with the British SAS in the 1982 Falklands War, the Stinger reached the Afghan mujahideen through the CIA's Operation Cyclone, pushed by Representative Charlie Wilson. The mujahideen claimed a 79 percent kill rate and 269 Soviet aircraft, figures analysts doubt, but Soviet helicopters were forced to fly higher. In 1990 the U.S. began a $55 million buyback, paying about $183,000 per missile, yet hundreds went missing. After 2022 shipments to Ukraine drained about a quarter of the U.S. stockpile, Raytheon told the Pentagon the seeker relied on microelectronics no longer made anywhere and recalled retired engineers to redesign it.

• The episode reports that the Secret Service does not deny long-standing rumors of Stingers in the presidential motorcade, though the real plan is to drive away.
• Missing Stingers are tracked to Iran, North Korea and insurgents in Sri Lanka.
• Battery coolant units expire after four to five years, which should disable old missiles.
• Insurgents in the Syrian civil war bypassed dead thermal batteries by wiring launchers to ordinary car batteries.
• The Red Wasp program would add a ramjet to extend range against drones while the Army seeks a replacement by 2026.