Dogfight Between Hypersonic Jets At The Edge Of Space Usa Vs Russia

SSG(P) (Join to see) Apparently not. It makes sense though. The orbiter had maneuvering jets that would change the attitude of the craft by using bursts from the OMS/RCS pods. Firing a missile would be like firing those pods. It would change the course of the craft requiring a counter fire from a similar pod on the aircraft to maintain course. Though I think it would be more humane than causing your adversary to lose altitude until his fuselage failed and he burned to death in a ball of fire during re-entry.

PO3 Steven Sherrill - Don't current missiles drop away from the aircraft before the rocket motor ignites? Why wouldn't that continue to work? Even a jet of compressed air should be enough to do the trick.

SSG(P) (Join to see) - I do not honestly know. Even if they did, in space they would not so much fall as drift. They would not likely drift far from the craft, and then the craft would still be impacted by the exhaust when the motor did fire and drive the missile toward the adversary. Another good point though is that in the vacuum of space, what would happen to a missile released from a craft traveling at that speed? Would the missile start to fall back of the craft upon release? Sorry, too much food for thought.

https://www.quora.com/How-is-a-missile-fired-from-a-fighter-jet-How-does-it-function-exactly

SN Greg Wright I agree that this is not the future. Just doesn't seem practical. Air Superiority in a battle space is important. Control the air so that your ground forces can move with impunity while the adversary can only move when air support for your forces is unavailable. These planes in space do nothing to achieve that. I think drone swarms would be interesting to see in air to air combat. It is fun to speculate though.

PO3 Steven Sherrill - Dale Brown has written about miniature drone swarm aircraft in one of his books. I forget which one, but it's part of his "Dreamland" series.

SSG(P) (Join to see) - In fact, it's my belief that within a 100 years or so, ALL warfighting will be drones. Ships. Land vehicles. Aircraft. Hell, probably even infantry. Be interesting to see.

SN Greg Wright - Yes, kind of like a real-time video game, or global gladiator contest.