Welcome to TFB’s Photo Of The Day series. Every day we show you a selection of pictures and today the location is Jurmalciems in Latvia. We have soldiers assigned to the 5th Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment firing the FIM-92 Stinger Man-Portable Air Defense System. The Stinger is an infrared homing surface-to-air missile (SAM), and each missile weighs 22 lb (10.1 kg) with a 6.6 lb (3 kg) warhead.

This happened during Tobruq Arrows which is a joint multinational training exercise with the NATO allies, Latvia and Lithuania.

Below you can see the small ejection motor which gets the missile out to a safe distance from the operator before it engages its two-stage solid-fuel sustainer. This accelerates the Stinger to its maximum speed of Mach 2.54 (750 m/s).

According to Wikipedia, the price for a Stinger is 38,000 USD and it has been in production since 1981.

Below: Tobruq Arrows participants stand in a closing ceremony after four days of training.

Driving a Jeep on the dunes? Below you can see the Avenger air defense system, which is a short-range air defense

Pictures by U.S. Army Sgt. Dommnique Washington, 7th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment,

Have any of our readers ever fired a Stinger? Do let us know below.