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{{quote|"A reaction drive's efficiency as a weapon is in direct proportion to its efficiency as a drive."|'''The Kzinti Lesson''', ''[[Larry Niven]]''.}}
Most [[Jet Pack|jetpacks, rocket boots]], and [[Cool Starship|spaceships]] give off impressive plumes of fiery exhaust when they're moving. For the most part, this exhaust is just there to [[Rule of Perception|show that something's happening]]. But the exhaust of a rocket can also double as a [[Kill It
Also known as '''[[Known Space|Kzinti Lesson]]:''' the more efficient a reaction drive is, the better a weapon it makes. An inversion of the [[Law of Inverse Recoil]], since the recoil in these cases is intentional. Also an inversion of [[Recoil Boost]], which is [[In Soviet Russia, Trope Mocks You|an exhaustized weapon]]. A subtrope of [[Superweapon Surprise]]. [[Fartillery]] is effectively the biological variant of this. See also [[Backpack Cannon]].
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* ''Orguss 02'': Young [[Humongous Mecha]] mechanic Lean has [[Falling Into the Cockpit|fallen into the cockpit]] and is barely holding his own against an enemy pilot. His solution: tackle the other Decimator mecha onto a nearby island, bend its [[Schizo-Tech|machine gun barrels]] so it can't counterattack, point his Decimator's [[Rocket Boots]] at the enemy's cockpit!
* In ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory]]'', Kou gives Gato a face-full of his Gundam's maneuvering thrusters when locked in close combat. This doesn't actually damage Gato's Gundam, but it does blind and distract him.
** The leader of [[La Résistance]] is killed in ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam The 08th MS Team]]'' when a Zaku fires it's thrusters in an attempt to escape an ambush. The backwash takes out his entire house, too. And this was ''entirely by accident'' and happened mostly because a resistance member in that house fired an anti-tank rocket at it.
** ''[[
** In ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'', one luckless Zaku was caught behind ''White Base'' as she was taking off and got vaporized by the engines.
** At the end of the Guyana Highlands arc of G Gundam, Domon knocks over Master Asia's gundam and basically blowtorches Master Gundam away.
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** In one of the Robotech novels, a Zentraedi uses his battlepod's feet as blowtorches to fight off an Invid scout.
* In ''[[Crest of the Stars]]'', Lafiel kills Baron Febdash the Younger by venting antimatter propellant through the exhaust nozzles of her shuttle - curiously, the Baron's ship is not obliterated when the exhaust hits its hull, while the Baron succumbs to [[Blood From the Mouth|rapid radiation poisoning]].
* In ''[[Last Exile: Fam,
== Comic Books ==
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* In ''[[An Entry With a Bang (Fanfic)|An Entry With a Bang]]!'', the pirates attacking Chicago use the plumes of their Dropship to toast a lot of infantry. The Fusion Torch project aims to use Dropship reactors in this fashion. The weapons' nickname, "Shipkiller", should tell you everything you need to know.
* In the ''[[Firefly]]'' fic series ''[[
* In ''[[Sleeping
== Film ==
* ''[[Planet of the Apes]]'' remake, when Leo uses the crashed Oberon's main thruster to burn the ape army's first wave.
* The [[Cool Car|Batmobile's]] jet engine is used as a weapon in ''[[
* In ''[[Alien (
* In ''[[Indiana Jones and
* Hugo Drax attempts to do this to [[James Bond (
** At the start of the movie the stolen shuttle does this to its carrier aircraft during its getaway.
* Richard B. Riddick does this to the alien monsters as the survivors make their getaway at the end of ''[[Pitch Black]]''.
* In ''[[RoboCop
* In ''[[Face
* In the Movie version of ''[[Iron Man (
* In ''[[The Rocketeer (
* In ''[[
** In ''[[
* In ''[[Transformers:
* The [[Daniel Craig]] version of ''[[
== Literature ==
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* In ''[[Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows]]'', Sirius's flying motorbike is upgraded for Hagrid. Included in this is a burst of Dragon breath out the exhaust.
* As part of the climactic sequence of [[Sandy Mitchell]]'s ''Scourge the Heretic'', an Inquisition shuttle pilot uses his exhaust to blast the front wall off the bad guys' mansion.
* In the early [[
* Unintentionally used by a number of "hot-shot" pilots throughout the [[X Wing Series]], generally resulting in little scars on the hangar floor. Corran Horn also once used an airspeeder's exhaust to help vent an area of toxic gas.
** The [[Star Wars Expanded Universe|EU]] also has it that, while the exhaust of capital ships doesn't pose much of a threat to like-sized ships, it can fry unwary fighters.
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* In [[Alastair Reynolds]]' ''Revelation Space'', one of the [[Lost Technology|hell-class weapons]] is possessed by a sentient, alien computer virus and attempts to destroy an inhabited planet; disaster is narrowly averted by hitting it with the exhaust from a Conjoiner Drive.
** Also used in ''The Prefect'', where the Conjoiner engines of the lighthugger ''Accompaniment of Shadows'' are used to destroy the Ruskin-Sartorious habitat.
* Not exactly ''exhaust'', per se, but the [[
** Used in the first of the series (''On Basilisk Station'') when Honor cripples one of Havenite shuttles that were ready to summon the invasion fleet.
** This is how countermissiles work too. They don't have warheads; they just hit the impeller wedge of enemy missiles with their own wedge, destroying both with the feedback on their drives.
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* In [[David Weber]]'s Dahak series, the gravitational "backwash" from the [[FTL|warp drive]] is used to blow up a star. Fun times abound when your [[That's No Moon|planetoid-sized ships]] use artificial black holes as ''propulsion''.
* In Sergey Lukyanenko's ''[[Line of Delirium]]'' novel, the main characters are infiltrating/storming a military orbital platform. Upon receiving a coded signal, their ship, sitting in the hangar bay, uses it's gravity engine to "push out" the hangar bay doors and then activates the plasma engines to fry the combat droids guarding it.
* In [[Arthur C. Clarke
* In [[
** Given when it was written (1960), this example should be a candidate for trope namer.
*** (For those who want to know the details: the ship is dived headlong towards the enemy base, and then flipped end-for-end and full thrust applied to cancel out the velocity gained. The shields are overloaded and collapse, and then the target follows. Twice.)
* The ''[[
{{quote| He had just turned her (Jumpship) Caliban into a half kilometer long particle projector cannon, the biggest damned PPC in the Inner Sphere.}}
** Also used in the climax of the novel "I Am Jade Falcon." The aging Falcon Mechwarrior Joanna is trapped in a fallen ''Summoner,'' having lost a leg in battle and with her weapons nonfunctional. {{spoiler|She activates her one remaining offensive option, the jump jets in her 'Mech's remaining leg, which causes the flare from the jets to impale [[Badass|Khan Natasha Kerensky]]'s [[Ace Custom|modified Dire Wolf]] [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|"Widowmaker"]] through the cockpit, killing her and making Joanna a Jade Falcon legend.}}
* Used as a particularly gruesome method of execution in Scarecrow by [[Matthew Reilly]], with the afterburner of a tied-down fighter jet.
* In Georgy Gurevich ''Overtake Only'' the protagonists who've just stolen an old photonic rocket from a museum ([[It Makes Sense in Context|it's a long story]]) deal with the pursuers by pointing the reflector at them and starting the engine, evaporating in the process not only them, [[What the Hell, Hero?|but a good chunk of the space station]] to which the rocket was docked as well.
* In the [[James Bond (
* In ''[[When Worlds Collide (
* In Poul Anderson's ''Harvest of Stars'', there is a treaty banning weapons in space. When the main characters get into a space battle with the bad guys, it is essentially a game of cat and mouse, each trying to slash the other with their exhausts while avoiding getting slashed themselves.
* Mack Maloney's ''Wingman'' series has an air pirate early on threaten to torture Hawk Hunter by strapping his face to the engine of his fighter and slowly turning up the power. While he never goes through with this threat, in a later book (''Freedom Express'') Hawk kills an escaping baddie by flying his Harrier over the jeep and cooking them until the obese lieutenant [[Ludicrous Gibs|bursts]].
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** ''[[Top Gear]]'' did the same stunt at one point, using a saloon car and then a Citroen 2CV.
* The Convair X-6 was a prototype of atomic-fueled bomber releases so much radioactivity on its path, to make it a weapon itself. The project has been closed as there was no way to reduce the emission when in friendly territory.
* The [[Fun
* Inverted with the [[Orion Drive|Orion Project]], which would ''intentionally'' launch ''thermonuclear bombs'' out the back and catching the blast with a pusher plate on massive shock absorbers. Call it [[Mundane Utility|Exhaustized]] [[Recoil Boost|Weapons]]. Or not.
** The only space station ever to be really armed (an old Soviet station that had a machine gun on it) ran into problems with the reaction from the bullets pushing it out of its correct orbit.
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== Tabletop Games ==
* In ''[[
* ''[[GURPS]]: Space'' lists the offensive potential of several engines. Because GURPS assumes that most engines will not have particularly coherent exhaust streams they're relatively weak compared to normal armaments.
** The [[Rule of Cool|nuclear jetpack]] blasts superheated radioactive exhaust at everyone below it. Why anyone would wear such a thing is a different issue.
*** A BBEG using it to escape the heroes?
* SPI's classic boardgame ''StarForce'' uses a relative of this trope. In the game, "TeleShips" move [[Faster-Than-Light Travel|FTL]] by teleportation. They fight by throwing random teleport windows at each other.
* [[
* In Palladium's [[Rifts]] sourcebook "Mechanoids", Overlords and Oracles (evil, building sized robots with a bend for human extermination) are packed full of weapons, but still like the elegant process of flying a few meters over unprotected humans. Crispy bacon.
== Web Comics ==
* James from ''[[
* Inverted in '''[[
* An engineer in ''[[Vexxarr]]'' [http://www.vexxarr.com/archive.php?seldate=080210 pointed out] that since by definition hot plasma goes in the direction exactly ''opposite'' to the ship' acceleration, this also solves a fundamental philosophical dilemma -- "fight or flight".
* In ''[[
== Web Original ==
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* You can use this in ''Gates of Zendocon'' on the Atari Lynx.
* In the ''[[Battlefield (
* PTX-40A in [[Capcom vs. Whatever|Tatsunoko vs. Capcom]] uses its thrusters as attacks in some of its command normals.
* In the Irem [[Shoot'Em Up]] ''Image Fight'', changing gears causes a tiny burst of exhaust that can do some damage in a pinch.
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** This is a common attack in shmup games, the third boss of ''Ray Force'' and the Twin black MIGS boss of ''Aero Fighters'' do the same thing.
** One of ''[[Gradius]] Gaiden'''s stage 9 midbosses, Boost Core, has harmless exhaust...but only on the first loop. From the second loop onwards, its exhaust is lethal.
* The second boss in [[
* In ''[[One Must Fall]] 2097'', the Pyros robot is equipped with rocket boosters that double as flamethrowers. One particular special move has the Pyros use the boosters to reverse direction in midair, damaging any close-by opponent in the process.
* Several of [[Robot Buddy|R.O.B.]]'s attacks in ''[[Super Smash Bros]]. Brawl'' involve this. [[Star Fox (
* In ''[[Sonic 3 and Knuckles
* Vectorman's foot jets that allow him to [[Double Jump]] also allow him to deal damage to his enemies via the [[Goomba Stomp]] method.
* Space RTS [[
** [[Fridge Logic|Well of course it was]], [[Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better|since they used mass drivers]].
* In ''[[Dead Space (
* In [[Metal Gear Solid|Metal Gear Solid 2]] the harrier boss burns you with its exhaust as one of its attacks.
* [[Kirby]]'s Jet ability has this when it's charging power, as well as when Kirby is attacking, at least in ''[[Kirby Super Star]]''.
** In the DS remake, it also causes damage while using it to hover, which is a surprisingly effective method of disposing of bosses and enemies alike at times.
* In ''[[Half-Life]]'', a tentacle monster is living inside one of Black Mesa's rocket test chambers. [[Kill It
* In ''[[Darius|G-Darius]]'', the boss "[[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Death]] [[Meaningful Name|Wings]]", a [[Humongous Mecha]] [[Flying Seafood Special|manta ray]] tries to torch the silver hawks via exhaust from its manta ray "wings".
* ''[[Mass Effect]]'' [[All There in the Manual|has a codex entry]] noting that a [[Cool Starship|dreadnought]]'s exhaust can melt through practically anything (we never see it used, though).
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** The Normandy generates Mass Effect fields that it "falls" into, in order to mask it's emissions when in stealth mode. Just ''imagine'' what multiple, sufficiently powerful directed Mass Effect fields could do under the right circumstances... [http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Codex/Ships_and_Vehicles#Normandy_Shield_Upgrade:_Cyclonic_Barrier_Technology_.28CBT.29 oh, wait, that's suggested here], albeit in the form of shields rather than engines. Still!
** Finally played straight in the ''Arrival'' [[DLC]], when Shepard and Dr. Kenson escape from the Batarian prison, some guards arrive a bit late to stop them... and find themselves on the wrong end of their escape shuttle.
* The airship levels in ''[[
* In ''[[X
* In ''[[The Bouncer]]'', [[The Dragon|Mugetsu]] is killed by being dropped off the side of an airship, into its booster jets.
* Though it naturally doesn't come up in gameplay, ISA cruisers in ''[[Killzone]]'' can use their nuclear-powered beam thrusters as weapons, too.
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* This is a surprisingly effective way to kill someone if your clones lack better weaponry (and sometimes even when they do due to the wonky physics making them ineffective) in ''[[Cortex Command]]''.
** It's also quite effective at killing enemy dropships when piloting a dropship yourself. Being that the ships are unarmed and with very weakly armored engines, the best course of action is to position your ship so one of its engines is exhausting on top of one of the engines of the enemy dropship, and hit the throttle.
* In ''[[
* Of all games, ''[[Einhander]]'' has one for the ''player character''. By changing speed, your craft gives out a burst of exhaust, which along with the manipulator arm may be the deadliest weapons in the game. Because of this, it's possible to beat a level ''without firing a shot''. Elsewhere in the game, the booster rockets for the satellite can kill you if you fly behind them.
** The Star Soldier series uses this variant as well. At times, a ring-shaped enemy ship will enclose you, and the fastest way to dispatch it is to mash the "speed change" button while firing.
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* Sebulba in ''[[Star Wars]]: Episode 1 Racer'' has this, just like in the movie.
* The gunship in ''[[Perfect Dark]] Zero'' attacks with its engine flames after it [[Turns Red]].
* In ''[[James Bond 007: Nightfire]]'', Bond kills off Kiko with the exhaust of a Space Shuttle owned by Phoenix.
== Western Animation ==
* Inverted by skilled firebenders in ''[[
* [[Batman:
* Really bizarre example occurs in ''[[Lilo and Stitch]]''. Stitch is on the back of the evil shark alien's ship, and to attack him, the alien pushes a button that causes the thrusters to turn inward and blast Stitch (who is fine, being [[Nigh Invulnerable]] and in a Disney movie). Why would he even ''have'' a button that does that?!
** Space Barnacles? Or to cut tow cables that might be attached. Or to 'terminate' captured targets.
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