: how does a air-air missile track an aircraft that is constantly changing it’s direction while also traveling supersonic?
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The missile has a camera in the front with a lens that lets it see a wide angle of view. The camera is tuned to see infrared (heat), and then fines of a jet are hot so the camera sees a big white spot that that it aims for. Electronics in the missile tell it to steer the missile so that the bright spot is always in the middle of the view (straight ahead). If spot moves away from the center, the missile’s electronics adjust its direction. It steers by moving little fins on the missile like a plane steers by moving its flaps and aileron. The missiles are designed to be faster than jet fighters and they can turn much quicker too (because of G forces, a pilot can pass out if they turn too quickly and missiles don’t).
This why air-to-air missiles are so deadly and so fantastically expensive. The missile costs 10 times the yearly salary of the person that fired it, but it can bring down a plane 25 to 150 times its cost.
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