Why don't planes have rear mounted missiles?

[r3vange]

[color=#FFFFFF]A modern missile say the R-73 flies with something like mach 2.5. If you are flying with 900 km/h that means you are butchering its speed to something like mach 1.6. At close range say 200 meters, until that rocket stops and starts accelerating forward the enemy airplane would have passed it already, not to mention that the missile will lose a lot of altitude since it's a brick without huge speed or momentum. That said, the mentioned R-73 is renouned to be able to track at "impossible" angles say being launched at an aircraft at a 90 degrees angle, but if it's launched forward.

The only way for a missile to be fired "backwards" is if the fighter pops a Cobra, but then the airspeed is essentially 0 so the missile is still just accelerating

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