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Rear firing missiles


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I would say they are possible, but not practical.

 

For heatseekers, the exhaust is behind the aircraft so by the time they detonate the plane is pretty much past, and for most radar guided (if I am not mistaken) most of the data is sent from the aircraft's radar, and the missile heads in a general direction and then locks on with its own radar much closer to the target. Mounting forward facing AND rear facing radar on fighters just doesn't make sense.

 

 As well, any missiles that are mounted backwards are no good in the offensive role, to waste that much weight and space for a purely defensive purpose limits it's offensive capability. 

 

 on bombers, again, its alot of wight and space for a purely defensive purpose that wouldn't get used very often.

 

 Sean

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My guess is also: When they launch, they have a velocity of minus airspeed of the launching aircraft. They have to accelerate from a negative speed to positive speed to gain maneouvebility and "go" towards their target.

 

 

HAJO

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I believe most current IR missiles can be targeted aft using helmet mounted sights.   As noted, you loose a great deal of kinetic energy though, so it's probably not an optimum way to engage a target.  However, if a bad guy is on your 6, it's probably better than nothing....

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Now, they don't need to, the AIM-9X can be targeted at a trailing aircraft, fired forward and then pull a high-G turn to reverse course and kill the target. It probably loses less energy pulling the turn than a rear-firing weapon would need to slow down, stop then speed up again in the opposite direction, which in effect it would need to do. If the target was fairly close (mile or two) the missile and target would merge while the missile probably had a very low TAS and so would be very easy to avoid. If the target were much further away, it would probably be more effective to turn the launching aircraft around and attack normally.

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The Russians have tried that. The first time I found about that was flying Fighters Anthology and as I was closing in on the rear of a Sukhoi fighter I was blown out of the sky. An interesting idea, and if the Russians had a pressing need to make it work, could be useful.

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