Like Jeepney says, when the plane shoots a bullet, it will come out with the extra speed of the plane added to it. Just like if you drop a bomb out of a plane, it won't go straight down, because it will initially be moving forward at the same speed as the airplane was when it released it.
But, perhaps if in the plane you fired the shots while you were climbing, then turned into a bit of a dive, if you timed it right, they could land on you. Whether this would do much damage, though, I can not say.

Nic

Physics tells us that if a bullet is fired from a plane, the total speed of the bullet is its own speed plus the speed of the plane.

If you are in an elevator and it falls 30 meters, you have nothing to worry about, just jump inside the elevator when it hits the floor! You should land safely. #:-)

You´re driving 40 mph with your car. You throw a tennis ball BACKWARDS exactly 40 mph from the moving vehicle.
The tennisball falls straight down. #:-)

Seriously, there was a close-accident last night here in Finland. A Hawk was just about to land, altitude 100-150m when somebody shot at it with a signal flare...it didn´t hit, though. I wonder what the guy was thinking???

I've heard that legend... it was with an F11 tiger jet diving and shooting... and then catching up with the bullets... a good joke, isn't it ?

Here's a link to the story. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the website, but if you read it on the net, it must be true!

8) OH BOY,
Heres one that I actually get to answer...And it is one that I know from historical
records including a history program outlining the SR-71 When the SR-71 waas origionally
developed it was thougfht that it could be used as an extremely high altitude Interceptor, So
it was outfitted with missles and test fired from same platforms, After the weapon was released the SR-71 would increase speed and in a number of trial runs the missles almost caught up with the plane. SO obviously it was figured out that the SR-71 vwould make a lousey interceptor. Hence the concept of a HIGH ALTITUDE HIGH SPEED Recon plane to assist the U-2 project. Which was decided could not meet that need. i.e. a number of them were shot down by Russian or Cuban Anti-Aircaft Missles. The SR-71 was quiet able to both out run and out distance any current A/A Missles in those countries inventories.
So in short it never actually shot itself down but it came close enough on several occassion during it's early days. Also shortly before the SR-71 was taken out of service due to the advances made in Satallite Technology. A North Korean A/A BAttery attempted to shoot one down with a Missle. Howevwer by the time the missle made it to where the SR-71 was suppossed to be i.e. interception course. The crew was alerted and hit the afterburners. Speeding away at twice the speed of the on coming missle, Much less it's altitude. Basicly the A/C crew was laughing thier butts off 20 miles and seconds later . While the N.K A/A crew were left looking TOTALLY STUPID !!. in short the SR-71 was the only known A/C to fly faster than it's own weapons systems. Which is why that program was ended and established instead as a High Speed, High Altitude Recon A/C.

DAGGER-1

Quoted Text

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8) OH BOY,
Heres one that I actually get to answer...And it is one that I know from historical
records including a history program outlining the SR-71 When the SR-71 waas origionally
developed it was thougfht that it could be used as an extremely high altitude Interceptor, So
it was outfitted with missles and test fired from same platforms, After the weapon was released the SR-71 would increase speed and in a number of trial runs the missles almost caught up with the plane. SO obviously it was figured out that the SR-71 vwould make a lousey interceptor. Hence the concept of a HIGH ALTITUDE HIGH SPEED Recon plane to assist the U-2 project. Which was decided could not meet that need. i.e. a number of them were shot down by Russian or Cuban Anti-Aircaft Missles. The SR-71 was quiet able to both out run and out distance any current A/A Missles in those countries inventories.
So in short it never actually shot itself down but it came close enough on several occassion during it's early days. Also shortly before the SR-71 was taken out of service due to the advances made in Satallite Technology. A North Korean A/A BAttery attempted to shoot one down with a Missle. Howevwer by the time the missle made it to where the SR-71 was suppossed to be i.e. interception course. The crew was alerted and hit the afterburners. Speeding away at twice the speed of the on coming missle, Much less it's altitude. Basicly the A/C crew was laughing thier butts off 20 miles and seconds later . While the N.K A/A crew were left looking TOTALLY STUPID !!. in short the SR-71 was the only known A/C to fly faster than it's own weapons systems. Which is why that program was ended and established instead as a High Speed, High Altitude Recon A/C.

DAGGER-1

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The SR-71 was never proposed as an interceptor, the YF-12 was. The YF-12 was in turn a devolpment of the A-12 - as was the SR-71.

The idea of the YF-12 was very good, it was determined that only 93 production F-12B's would be needed to defend CONUS. It demonstrated kills of targets at all heights and speeds with its armament of 3x AIM-47 missiles. One of the kills was against a B-47 flying at 1500ft and 36 miles away. The YF-12 who achieved this kill wsa at M3.2 and 75 000ft.

The USAF never issued a contract, generally it is believed this was done to keep the XB-70 program from being effected.

Cheers,
Linz