Sea Skua

The Sea Skua is a British lightweight short-range air-to-surface missile (ASM) designed for use from helicopters against ships. It is primarily used by the Royal Navy on the Westland Lynx. Although the missile is intended for helicopter use, Kuwait employs it in a shore battery and on their Umm Al Maradem (Combattante BR-42) fast attack craft.

The British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) began development of the weapon in May 1972. The British Government authorised its production in October 1975. At the time, the missile was known as CL834. In November 1979 the first launches took place at the Aberporth Range in Cardigan Bay. Three missiles were launched from the ground and three by helicopters. Further tests were made and in July 1981, full-scale production was ordered of the new missile, now called "Sea Skua".

Design

With the missile weighing only 320 pounds (150 kg) at launch, a Lynx helicopter can carry up to four (two on each wing pylon). The booster is a Royal Ordnance (now Roxel UK) "Redstart" steel body, while the sustainer is a Royal Ordnance "Matapan" light alloy body. The missile flies at high subsonic speed to a range of up to 15.5 miles (24.9 km). The official range is declared to be 15 km, but this is widely exceeded. The missile has two sensors: a semi-active radar homing system by Marconi Defence Systems, and a Thomson-TRT AHV-7 radar altimeter (which is also used by the Exocet missile), built under licence by British Aerospace Defence Systems.

Skua

The skuas /ˈskjuːə/ are a group of seabirds with about seven species forming the family Stercorariidae and the genus Stercorarius. The three smaller skuas are called jaegers in the Americas.

The English word "skua" comes from the Faroese name skúgvur [ˈskɪkvʊər] for the great skua, with the island of Skúvoy renowned for its colony of that bird. The general Faroese term for skuas is kjógvi [ˈtʃɛkvə]. The word "jaeger" is derived from the German word Jäger, meaning "hunter".

Skuas nest on the ground in temperate and Arctic regions, and are long-distance migrants. They have even been sighted at the South Pole.

Biology and habits

Outside the breeding season, skuas take fish, offal, and carrion. Many are partial kleptoparasites, comprising up to 95% of the feeding methods of wintering birds, by chasing gulls, terns and other seabirds to steal their catches, regardless of the size of the species attacked (up to 3 times heavier than the attacking skua). The larger species, such as the great skua, also regularly kill and eat adult birds, such as puffins and gulls, and have been recorded as killing birds as large as a grey heron. On the breeding grounds, the three, more slender northern breeding species commonly eat lemmings. Those species that breed in the southern oceans, largely feed on fish that can be caught near their colonies. The eggs and young of other birds are an important food source for most skua species during the nesting season. In the southern oceans and Antarctica region, some skua species (especially the south polar skua) will readily scavenge the carcasses at breeding colonies of penguins and pinnipeds, sometimes taking live penguin chicks. In these areas, skuas seem to defer to the considerably larger giant petrels.

Skua (rocket)

Skua is the designation of a British sounding rocket which was launched between 1959 and 1981 in 4 versions over 300 times. The Skua was developed by Bristol Aerojet and RPE Wescott. It consisted of a starting stage made up of several Chick rockets that burned for 0.2 seconds. They propelled the rocket 20 metres over the 5 metre long launch tube. After that, the Bantam main stage ignited.

Skua 1

Skua 2

Skua 3

Skua 4

Skua (disambiguation)

Skua is a seabird in the family Stercorariidae.

Skua may also refer to:

See also

Sea

A sea is a large body of salt water that is surrounded in whole or in part by land. More broadly, "the sea" is the interconnected system of Earth's salty, oceanic waters—considered as one global ocean or as several principal oceanic divisions. The sea moderates Earth's climate and has important roles in the water cycle, carbon cycle, and nitrogen cycle. Although the sea has been travelled and explored since prehistory, the modern scientific study of the sea—oceanography—dates broadly to the British Challenger expedition of the 1870s. The sea is conventionally divided into up to five large oceanic sections—including the IHO's four named oceans (the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, and Arctic) and the Southern Ocean; smaller, second-order sections, such as the Mediterranean, are known as seas.

Owing to the present state of continental drift, the Northern Hemisphere is now fairly equally divided between land and sea (a ratio of about 2:3) but the South is overwhelmingly oceanic (1:4.7).Salinity in the open ocean is generally in a narrow band around 3.5% by mass, although this can vary in more landlocked waters, near the mouths of large rivers, or at great depths. About 85% of the solids in the open sea are sodium chloride. Deep-sea currents are produced by differences in salinity and temperature. Surface currents are formed by the friction of waves produced by the wind and by tides, the changes in local sea level produced by the gravity of the Moon and Sun. The direction of all of these is governed by surface and submarine land masses and by the rotation of the Earth (the Coriolis effect).

Sea (astronomy)

The Sea or the Water is an area of the sky in which many water-related, and few land-related, constellations occur. This may be because the Sun passed through this part of the sky during the rainy season.

Most of these constellations are named by Ptolemy:

Sometimes included are the ship Argo and Crater the Water Cup.

Some water-themed constellations are newer, so are not in this region. They include Hydrus, the lesser water snake; Volans, the flying fish; and Dorado, the swordfish.

See also

References

Sea (EP)

Sea EP is the second EP from Doves. It was self-released on the band's Casino Records label on 24 May 1999 on limited CD and 10" vinyl. The band dedicated the EP to Rob Gretton, who helped fund Doves' early releases as well as when the band played as Sub Sub. Rob died of a heart attack only a few days before the EP was released. In the music video for "Sea Song," the opening title card reads "For Rob."

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Jez Williams, Jimi Goodwin, and Andy Williams. 

Notes