Because of the limit of angle of view(AOV) of IR imaging seeker during the approach of missile and target, the detector can only get the partial image sequence of aircraft nose after "lose point". Recognizing the axis direction on the basis of partial IR image sequence is a key issue of the advanced IR imaging guide air-to-air missile faced. In this paper, a recognition method was proposed based on the morphological skeleton and modified Hough transform, and this method can recognize correctly the axis direction of aircraft nose in different poses during missile-target encounter. Firstly, the morphological skeleton transform was used for the extraction of skeleton features. Secondly, the modified Hough transform was used for the straight-lines detection. Finally, According to the relations between aircraft nose and axis and invariant of nose features in high-speed IR image sequence, the axis direction can be detected and calculated. Experimental results indicate that the method is feasible and effective, and the precision of axis direction recognized can meet the requirement of accurate burst control of GIF fuze.