Do non-military planes have some kind of missile detection capabilites?
Like: Did the pilots know what was about to happen or that something was approaching them with high speed and whatnot or were they just blown out of the sky without the slightest idea?
It's .. not a problem the civilian manufacturers should be attempting to solve.
> It's .. not a problem the civilian manufacturers should be attempting to solve.
No, absolutely not. I was just wondering if they had at least the slightest idea what was about to happen.
Kind of gruesome to pass away like this, if you think about it. On the other hand: You can just as surprisingly be killed by a speeding car. Really bad in any way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gol_Transportes_Aéreos_Flight_...
Goes into a bit more depth on your point. Our expectation is that increasing use of tech in planes should make us safer, but in this case it _increased_ the chance of a mid-air collision. Of course planes have TCAS (Traffic Collision Avoidance System) to stop this happening, but it's no magic bullet ... particularly when it's turned off.
About a similar situation (in Ukraine): "It was not possible to ascertain at which moment the occupants died"
"Victims Could Have Remained Conscious During Fall"
https://time.com/3028548/mh17-malaysia-airlines-victims-ukra...
It was likely horrible here too.
How much could Boeing, for example, modify one of their civilian airframes to support active countermeasures and make it capable of withstanding more stressful maneuvers without altering the outside too much? Quite a lot, I would think.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Al#Onboard_missile_defense_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_VC-25
>All wiring is covered with heavy shielding for protection from a nuclear electromagnetic pulse in the event of a nuclear attack. The aircraft also has electronic countermeasures (ECMs) to jam enemy radar, flares to avoid heat-seeking missiles, and chaff to avoid radar-guided missiles
Airlines are hypersensitive to weight since that affects range and fuel costs. The action that American Airlines took to remove complementary magazines from their flights saved millions a year in fuel costs.
In Air Force One's case - they probably have some active countermeasures (flares) and some electronic countermeasures (jamming) built in, but that's about it. Probably useless against a foreign state's advanced SAM capabilities. Much of the extra weight capabilities are most likely taken up by communications equipment to provide the President and staff command authority. Minus some rudimentary capabilities for low-end SAMs, Air Force One is probably just as vulnerable to being shot down as your average cargo airliner.
That's not exactly true for +ve g's:
"from -1 to +2.5 (or up to +3.8 depending on design takeoff weight)"
If you were at 10,000' and you saw a radar-guided SA-2, diving downwards toward it would likely make it miss.
"Since the early 2000s, El Al has been the only commercial airline to fit its planes with systems to defend against anti-aircraft missiles."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Al#Onboard_missile_defense_...
If they want to shoot at you, they turn on another even stronger more focused light to improve accuracy.
Military today have ability to detect enemy targetting radars and when they lock on so having such a thing in SciFi does not seem strange to me.
[0]http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewardetect....
Ofcourse, anyone with enough offset to the target would be able to easily detect the engine and thermal release but the target could be unaware.
Another method to hide it is if missile uses some kind of obstacle in order to accelerate behind, for example you fire your missiles and they accelerate when a moon or a planet break line of sight from the target to the missiles. This would make their acceleration burn invisible to the target and could get them very close without being noticed.
tl;dr: it's exceedingly difficult to hide anything that consumes power in space. the rcs thrusters would either be too weak to achieve the delta v to hit the target, or the friction from the thrust against the nozzle would unstealth the missile. even the radiation from the onboard computer would likely stand out against the cosmic background. a missile like you describe could potentially evade current detection systems, but would almost certainly be detected by any civilization where ship-to-ship space combat is feasible. and not in a handwavy future tech way, but just from extrapolating current tech. I highly recommend checking out that page. it makes for a great read.
What I've talked more is about a missile. Missile can fly "cold", it could even be multistage so that after it's acceleration burn it can drop of a hot lower stage and continue to the target completely cold. If you add a cold plate and "terrain masking" you could effectively use a missile stealthily. Ofcourse if there is a full system sensor coverage this is not possible, but I've said that in my initial comment as well. You may be able to hide the heat from your target, but not from everyone.
Few months back India shot down its own Helicopter and now Iran shot a whole air plane. And they spend gigantic amount of money on defense. How lacking is the technology!
if there is such a way, then your enemy planes can just as easily masquerade as a civilian craft and evade the missile!
How does one do that easily?
Air traffic control messages and flight paths could help with that but there are complications - especially when sending out radio communication could light themselves up as a target.
Theoretically fiber optics and dedicated communication towers could separate the functions but there would be considerable logistical implications to that and well - even first world nations with a large military budget don't put that high of a priority on avoiding collateral damage.