waypoint creation on the fly?

I've been pondering spaceship AI over the last few days. My idea is for the AI ship to create it's own dogfighting waypoints on the fly. If the AI ship is approaching the player in attack mode, judging from entitydistance to the player it could create a waypoint behind and above/below/whatever the player in order to prevent a collision... then reacquire the player's position as the next waypoint.

Has this techniqe been done? Seem feasible?