- "What about the Stingers?"
"What do you know about Stingers?" - ― James Bond and Franz Sanchez
FIM-92 Stinger, also known as Stinger Missile or just Stinger, is a infrared-homing surface-to-air missile featured in James Bond media.
Produced by the American defense conglomerate Raytheon, the Stinger Missile is intended to be used against low-flying aerial targets. It is primarily fired from man-portable, shoulder-fired launchers (MANPADS), but can be adapted to fire from a wide variety of ground and naval vehicles, as well as from helicopters and drones as the Air-to-Air missile.
They appear in Licence to Kill, where they are portrayed as shoulder-fired rocket launcher and are used by Franz Sanchez and Perez. They had also been fitted to James Bond's BMW Z3 in GoldenEye
Film Appearances[]
Licence to Kill (film)[]
- "You brought the Stingers, manito. From now on, I want them close to me"
- ― Franz Sanchez to Dario
When James Bond prepares to use his Signature Rifle to shoot Franz Sanchez at his office atop Casino de Isthmus, Bond spots his ally, Pam Bouvier, talking with Sanchez's head of security, Colonel Heller. After the assassination is foiled by Hong Kong narcotics agents, but surviving thanks to Sanchez believing that Bond was attacked by his enemies, Bond heads to his suite at Hotel Mary Tierra, where he confronts Pam. He throws her to the suite bed and takes her ankle-holstered Beretta 950 Jetfire and starts inquiring about her presence at upper floors of Casino de Isthmus, believing she is collaborating with Sanchez somehow.
Pam explains that Sanchez has arranged to buy four Stinger missiles from the Nicaraguan Contras to explode an American airliner if American law-enforcement authorities - DEA in particular - don't relent their investigations on him. Bond then inquires about the Heller connection, with Pam telling him that Leiter gave her a letter from the attorney general, which would give Heller legal clemency if they get the Stinger missiles out of Sanchez's hands. Pam then tells that Heller initially agreed to the plan, but was sacred off by Bond's failed assassination attempt.
When its time for Sanchez to take his narcotics trade clients to his lab at Olympatec Meditation Institute, a AStar helicopter arrives at Sanchez's Villa. Dario is aboard the helicopter and shows Sanchez the Stinger missiles he got from his old Contra compatriots. Sanchez is pleased with Dario's success and gets aboard the helicopter, taking Dario and the Stingers to the Olympatec.
Sanchez's copter and the Stingers land at Olympatec, with Bond subsequently setting the place on fire. While Sanchez is busy dealing with Bond, Heller tries to snatch the Stinger missiles away. As Sanchez is trying to torture information out of Bond, by having the latter on a conveyor belt with hands tied, Bond mentions that Heller tries to get the Stingers for himself. Sanchez leaves and indeed catches Heller with the Stingers, ordering Braun to kill him. Sanchez and co. take the Stingers and put them in the trunk of Sanchez's Maserati Biturbo 425i.
Convoy of Kenworth Tankers - carrying 20 tonnes of cocaine dissolved into gasoline - has left the Olympatec, with Bond soon following them, thanks to the Piper Super Cub plane that Pam had acquired. Bond hijacks one of the tankers, with Sanchez contacting Perez by radio to meet ahead. Sanchez's Maserati stops by Perez's Jeep, and Sanchez orders Perez to take the a Stinger missile along with one of the launchers to kill Bond. Sanchez leaves in his Maserati as Perez and his group prepare the Stinger for Bond's arrival.
Perez with the Stinger launcher, ready to shoot at Bond's tanker.
Meanwhile, Bond has gotten in a clash between two tankers with another Sanchez-associated driver, whom Bond makes crash into a cliff wall. Perez then makes visual contact with Bond's truck and starts aiming the Stinger launcher.
Bond spots Perez from afar and realizes what he is doing, with Bond then driving the tanker over a pile of dug up ground to cause the tanker to ski on two wheels. Perez fires, but the missile flies under Bond's truck and instead hits the other tanker that crashed on the wall. Without another missile, Perez is forced to abandon the launcher, as Bond's truck is coming right at them, which destroys Perez's Jeep.
After Bond causes the third container to be destroyed, Sanchez and his men leave the Maserati, taking the remaining Stinger missile and launcher with them aboard the last tanker. Bond and Pam pursue, and after Sanchez runs out of ammo with his Micro Uzi in his attempt to kill Bond, he orders the driver to give him the Stinger.
After Bond opens the valve to cause the fuel container to leak, Pam appears in the Super Cub. Sanchez gets out and readies the Stinger and fires. Although the missile only punches through the Super Cub's tail, Sanchez still takes the plane out of action, forcing Pam to land elsewhere with Bond on his own.
GoldenEye (film)[]
- "Now, this I'm particularly proud of. Behind the headlights, Stinger missiles."
"Excellent. Just the thing for unwinding after a rough day." - ― Q and James Bond
Video Game Appearances[]
007 Racing[]
Behind the scenes[]
FIM-43 Redeye (above) and the FIM-92 Stinger (below). The above design is used to pose as the design below in the movie Licence to Kill.
The "stingers" presented in Licence to Kill are actually the FIM-43 Redeye surface-to-air missile launchers, which is the predecessor design to the FIM-92 Stinger. Although the two designs are quite similar, they can be distinguished with their grip stock, with Redeye having a shorter one that causes the battery/gas/coolant unit in front of the trigger/grip to stick out more. Also, Stinger's sight assembly is further away from the barrel, with Redeye's being rather close.
The launcher is also erroneously portrayed as being reloadable - akin to classic Bazooka - since both Redeye and Stinger launch tubes are fire-and-forget single-use only. Another error is that neither the Redeye nor Stinger Missile Launchers' aiming system cannot lock onto ground targets, meaning Perez could not have used it against the tanker truck unless the aiming system was fiddled with.
One thing wrongly considered an error is when the Stinger that Sanchez fires at Pam's Super Cub doesn't explode on contact. The reason for this is because the Stinger missile has a proximity fuse (as does other surface-to-air missiles), which makes sure that the missile doesn't explode at near the shooter and/or make sure that the shooter launches it from such distance that they have time to get away from the plane when it comes crashing from the hit. Indeed, if the missile had exploded when Sanchez fired it, it would have not only destroyed Pam's plane, but likely exploded the tanker too.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- The Stinger missiles were been removed from the Licence to Kill novelisation, being instead replaced with an advanced hand-controlled missile launcher. This change is probably because John Gardner was aware that Stinger Missile Launcher's aiming system cannot lock onto ground targets like tanker trucks.