Abstract: To effectively recover and stow hardware items from air launched missiles, a housing containing a rotor is mounted on the launching aircraft. The housing has a suitable opening and recess so that a lanyard can connect such hardware items as the missile air inlet cover to the rotor. The rotor has a spring therein under high tension sufficient to retract the missile cover into the housing recess in a short period of time. The spring powered rotor is activated by movement of the missile away from the aircraft but can be manually reloaded and the attachment point of the cover to the rotor manually reset, as desired.