: how does a air-air missile track an aircraft that is constantly changing it’s direction while also traveling supersonic?
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Depends on the type of guidance. For short ranges Air to air guides to the strongest heat source and will actuate its fins to adjust course. The amount the fins need to actuate is dependant on velocity and air pressure. Given the missile can travel at much higher speeds than aircraft and is verified at said speeds it should have a high probability of kill. There are other tracking methods at much longer ranges such as datalinking which allows the missile to piggyback of the host aircraft’s data providing information of where its intended target is, and once the missile reaches the desired range of its own onboard radar (known as a seeker in technical terms) it will utilise its own data for the endgame intercept.
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