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Red Hebe was a large active radar homing air-to-air missile developed by Vickers for the Royal Air Force's Operational Requirement F.155 interceptor aircraft. It was a development of the earlier Red Dean, which was not suitable for launch by the new supersonic aircraft. Before progressing much beyond advanced design studies, F.155 was cancelled in the aftermath of the 1957 Defence White Paper which moved Britain's attention from to ballistic missiles. With no other suitable platform, Red Hebe was cancelled as well.
Long before Fireflash flew, in 1951 the Air Ministry concluded that electronics was progressing fast enough to reconsider the all-aspect concept, and issued yet another design under the name "Red Dean", calling for a weapon with active radar homing. Using active homing meant the missile could be used by any fighter, as it was not linked to the signals from the fighter's own radar - it could even be used by without any radar assistance. This also meant the missile had to carry what was essentially a miniaturized version of an aircraft interception radar, which generally weighted hundreds of pounds, and would additionally need a power supply capable of producing radar transmissions of sufficient power.
Initially taken up by Folland Aircraft in 1951, chief designer Teddy Petter eventually lost interest in the project and it was taken up by Vickers the next year. Problems with the seeker led to the missile undergoing constant weight growth, eventually reaching , making it too heavy to fly on most aircraft of the era. It was then targeted for the P.376 "thin-wing' Javelin which would enter service in the late 1950s. Weight problems with the seeker continued, and in 1955 General Electric Company (GEC) proposed a new seeker based on , which were just emerging. This would reduce the seeker weight from to . This could be further reduced to if the system used semi-active radar homing (SARH), as this dramatically reduced the power requirements. The result is sometimes referred to as Red Dean Mk. 1.
Red Dean had been designed for carriage by subsonic aircraft and would only fly for a short time at supersonic speeds after it was launched. On these new aircraft, they would spend long times at supersonic speeds and then get even faster after launch. The materials used for Red Dean were not designed to handle the heat loads from the skin friction at these speeds, and would not be usable on these aircraft. Accordingly, when Vickers heard of the changes in the aircraft program, they proposed a new missile of stainless steel given the name "Red Hebe".
Red Hebe was similar to the later Red Dean concepts with transistorized seekers. Nevertheless, Ralph Hooper described it as "a development of Red Dean only in the same way that P.1103 is a development of the Hunter." The idea of moving to SARH was rejected as that would require modifications to the AI radar to allow it to produce a continuous signal during tracking, which would not be easily added to the conical scanning arrangement. The small available room in the nose for the radar antenna led to low resolution and thus the need for a large warhead to counteract the low accuracy of the weapon.
As a result of the steel airframe, high required speed, and a huge warhead, Red Hebe emerged as a system with roughly the same weight as Red Dean at even with the lighter electronics. Worse, it was even larger, at long and reached when fitted with aerodynamic fairings intended to reduce drag when being flown on aircraft at Mach 2.5. It was also quite large in diameter at , although this may have been due to the desire to optionally fit a small nuclear warhead. Some documentation refers to a "British RP.3", RP.3 being the UK name for the US-developed AIR-2 Genie unguided nuclear rocket. There is speculation that the warhead would be the "Purple Passion" device intended for landmine use.
The new weapon was considered as questionable as Red Dean before it. A significant criticism came from Squadron Leader Poole of the Operational Requirements branch of the Air Ministry. He was sent on a tour of the US to examine their missile programs and returned a report that described the US systems as being much simpler and better developed than their UK counterparts. He described Sidewinder as having less performance than the UK's Blue Vesta "but much simpler and now in use", while stating Red Hebe was "...still in the piston era" compared to Sparrow. He concluded that the US got "more for their money at less than half the weight" and that "Red Hebe will fade out in a few months since it in a different technical age."
There is some indication that Red Hebe was slated to be canceled in any event; during the studies for the Blue Steel there was some concern that English Electric was already overstretched and consideration was given to handing the project to Vickers, as it was assumed they would have little to work on. This was during the period when Red Dean and Red Hebe were still ongoing. Additionally, the Director of Guided Weapons at the Ministry of Supply, John Clemow, held a low opinion of the Vickers team.
Sandys identified a period, between 1957 and the mid-1960s in which the bomber remained the primary vehicle of attack and anti-aircraft weapons would still be needed. However, he felt the imminent arrival of the Bloodhound surface-to-air missile would fill this requirement. The Air Staff convinced him that near-term threats like the Tupolev Tu-22 were outside the capability of the Javelin and would arrive before Bloodhound. Sandys relented and agreed to allow the English Electric Lightning and Red Top missile to continue development to fill this role, cancelling the Blue Envoy long-range missile and OR.155 as they would all arrive outside this time frame.
Red Hebe no longer had a launch aircraft and was also cancelled. John Clemow, the Vickers critic, personally signed the cancellation.
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