The X-15 to my knowledge was not under thrust when maneuvering in the hypersonic regime, so I don't understand the connection here. And because of being unpower

The X-15 to my knowledge was not under thrust when maneuvering in the hypersonic regime, so I don't understand the connection here. And because of being unpowered and hypersonic, it would still be losing speed more rapidly than even an unpowered airplane or missile flying at a lower velocity. > That's why A2A missiles can pull of 50Gs despite very low L/D ratio No, they can do this because they're small, and being small means a low ballistic coefficient because your mass shrinks faster than the aerodynamic-force-generating area. But a 100kg missile is not what you use to strike very remote targets on the ground.