back-fired rocket/missile?

[Kaktus29]

imagine a plane flying obviously straight ahead.. now just imagine a missile being installed 180% around so when fired it will fly backwards.. what happens?. or a rocket pod turned like this.. does air turbulence do something..

 

if a car drives 20km/h and you run in opposite direction and jump from the car, ..if your speed is 20km/h then you will land on the street as if you jumped on the street with zero speed.

 

the thing with missiles and rockets is their speed is greater than the plane ..if plane goes 800 km/h and missile/rocket 3-5 machs.. it wouldn't matter or would it.. i guess it depends on acceleration.. if such great speed is accomplished fast there wouldn't be a consequence for the missile being dragged in opposite direction and would just continue in its own direction as stationed backwards.. so a missile in a tube along the fuselage and have it designed to get mot of its top speed at the start while in a this tube/container..so it would be akin to a hot launch from tomahawk or other cruise missiles tubes but with greater acceleration..

 

so in the end the missile speed would be 4 mach - speed of the plane (0.8 mach)..

[RagnarDa]

I have a distant memory of the Russians experimenting with rearward firing missiles...

[topol-m]

I think there have been some tests of such mounting but it's not viable nowadays, it's hell aerodynamically, the missiles create enough drag already imagine putting them backwards...

Turbulence is not an issue, you can always make it with delayed engine start like the amraam for instance.

And you're right about the speed, the missile would quickly get to it's max speed but it would have shorter range due to using its engine to compensate that negative speed it gets for being launched backwards.

The trend is to create stealth aircraft with internal weapon bays, missiles on the other hand are getting smarter and more agile, so next gen missiles you would probably be able to launch in every direction without previously pointing their noses in that direction.

[Darkwolf]

Must not be viable, US would not work on aim9 capable of 180° after firing.

[Kaktus29]

well if it is possible even with reduced range i think its hell of a good thing to have.. imagine Su-34 or any other tactical strike aircraft, going to bomb something and then returning home or just returning home after being attacked, with rear-radar and such a missile you get to kill anybody who would pursue you.. considering energy wise the one who pursues you must be much closer to you for his missile to kill you than you with your rear-fired missile..

 

at speeds of mach 1 the one hunting you must be 10 km to be sure of a kill, as the target is rear-facing aspect, while defendant gets to fire a missile to his face basically making it a head-on-aspect situation.. to planes like Tu-22M i think this would be even more useful.. the missile could be on a tube designed along the plane thus giving the missile "stabile" environment to rail off at max speed thus firing towards the enemy at Max speed minust Tu-22 speed, so instead of 4.5 mach it would be 3.5 mach into the face of a pursuant ..

 

with such a system bombers/tactical strike aircraft could get away with terrain-following strikes, after a strike is done escape probability is much more assured..

[winz]

I image it must be hell to control a missile that is flying backwards, decelerating using a powerfull rocekt engine, so that it doesn't do a 180° turn... or start spiraling out of control.

[Luzifer]

Doesn't at least the Eurofighter have the capability of launching at a target behind it?

 

Anyway, it's probably more efficient to launch the missile forward and let it turn around using aerodynamic lift instead of doing all that with the rocket engine alone.

[Isegrim]

Doesn't at least the Eurofighter have the capability of launching at a target behind it?

 

Anyway, it's probably more efficient to launch the missile forward and let it turn around using aerodynamic lift instead of doing all that with the rocket engine alone.

 

Aim2000/Iris-T has that ability via the PRAETORIAN system.

Its leading this missile behind with Datalink and uses the missiles Sensor fot target identfication/tracking in the expected angles.

 

Maybe the Japanese AAM-5 has this ability also.

Edited June 28, 2014 by Isegrim

[Exorcet]

well if it is possible even with reduced range i think its hell of a good thing to have.. imagine Su-34 or any other tactical strike aircraft, going to bomb something and then returning home or just returning home after being attacked, with rear-radar and such a missile you get to kill anybody who would pursue you.. considering energy wise the one who pursues you must be much closer to you for his missile to kill you than you with your rear-fired missile..

What do they do when they're attacked from the front on the way in? Why don't they just have escorts? What if they're attacked by F-22's or F35's?

 

If you want a rear radar as capable as the nose radar, it needs to be as big. It needs to be supplied with power and cooled too. Though I guess with modern data linking you might be able to ditch the radar.

 

at speeds of mach 1 the one hunting you must be 10 km to be sure of a kill, as the target is rear-facing aspect, while defendant gets to fire a missile to his face basically making it a head-on-aspect situation.. to planes like Tu-22M i think this would be even more useful.. the missile could be on a tube designed along the plane thus giving the missile "stabile" environment to rail off at max speed thus firing towards the enemy at Max speed minust Tu-22 speed, so instead of 4.5 mach it would be 3.5 mach into the face of a pursuant ..

 

Skipping to the last bit first, this is like the difference between AMRAAM and early Sparrow, so you've degraded your missile performance by a whole generation just by launching backwards. The missile will also have a slow reaction time because it's futile to maneuver while traveling backwards or at slow speed. Putting the missile in a tube won't change anything really.

 

Also consider that an attacking plane might be forced to fly low, which reduces missile range so even if the missile launched from the plane at max speed, it could still have a range penalty.

[Vedexent]

I haven't seen this idea outside of the 1982 Clint Eastwood movie Firefox ... "You must think in Russian".

[Basher54321]

Not much on any testing of this - a few claims in dodgy press article about an R-74ME where they overcome the rear mount aero issue by putting a cone over the end.

 

Obviously you must be able to target objects behind you - so you don't hit friendlies for example

 

If it's hung on the wing when it drops doing say minus 400KIAS - then assuming you can control it, does it burn as much rocket fuel to get to a useful maneuver speed as one that flies forward and turns around and always has positive energy?

 

There might not be enough in it to warrant bothering with the rear fire model.

 

On a striker it might be more viable but on a fighter you wouldn't want to waste a pylon when you could have a standard forward firing missile that can also hit targets 360 degrees around you.

[Buzzles]

If you were going to specialise the missile for rearward firing, it would probably be sensible to use some sort of extra booster acting as a retrorocket.

 

Basically, it would be turned into a two stage rocket. You might even be able to keep the original missile "as-is" and just alter how the eletrical connections work and have them route through the "retro-booster".

 

Obviously, this would be extra weight on the pylon as well.

[Kaktus29]

i guess an alternative to "save" missile fuel etc. would be to deploy it like Mk-82 AIR verison.. a sort of parachute-gliding mechanism that would make sure missile doesn't loose much altitude while it stops to a close zero knots.. after that it fires and there we go..

 

so such missile would act like mines dropping from a truck you are following.. not necessarily dangerous for you but only if you keep following the aircraft.. the missile could be of small range like archer, enough to make you think about rear-aspect hunting a plane..

[Mustang]

Has anyone ever seen this?

 

[Basher54321]

Photos would appear to show it was at zero V fairly quickly - would be good to know more about it.

[Kaktus29]

must be a booster of some kind to stop it to ZERO, then booster falls off and missiles starts ... simple really.. and 10km is the range...so yeah very good.. problem is only acquiring targets, either by rear-radar that is obviously less capable then front radar but still enough to acquire a target at 15km range.. or use of link from other systems

[GGTharos]

Problem is that you've just gave up two pylons to weapons you'll probably never use.

 

There's a reason why no one's mounting rear-firing AAMs on any aircraft. It's simply a waste of space. As far as 'just using a booster', notice how forward firing missiles don't even use such a thing, and it would certainly be nice!

 

Rearward mounted missiles suffer from the major disadvantage of having half their speed taken away by having to go to zero speed and back up again. During this time, they can't maneuver, or can only barely maneuver. This limits the minimum range at which the missile is useful as well.