All I know is that when testing the F-11, they put it into a shallow dive to attack a target, fired the guns, went supersonic, and before the plane pulled out of the dive the cannon shells hit the front of the aircraft.
This has actually happened multiple times lol. The F-11 did it in testing and if I recall correctly, a dutch pilot shot himself down during a training mission in an F-16.
The plane doesn't have to accelerate. The bullets aren't powered after they leave the barrel, but the plane is, so bullets start losing speed basically instantly, but the plane can maintain, or accelerate. So if you're arcing downwards while firing and not slowing yourself down, eventually you'll catch up to the cloud of bullets if you're at a sufficiently high altitude. This is a risk for basically any combat aircraft with a gun, it's not a particularly hard feat from a speed perspective alone, bullets don't actually move that quickly for that long. Missiles on the other hand...
87
u/PunchingFossils 4d ago
Isn’t that basically impossible?
could it accelerate fast enough to catch the bullet?