Influence of Variable Thrust on Basic Fighter Maneuvers.

The report contains an optimization analysis on the effect of variable thrust on basic fighter maneuvers. Optimization techniques are used to find the best thrust control to enable a pursuer to prevent a target flight path overshoot when attempting to launch a heat seeking missile. The conjugate gradient method is used to maximize the probability of kill by changing the initial estimated aircraft controls to improve the missile launch conditions. The variable controls are thrust, lift coefficient and bank angle. A multiplier method is used to enforce boresight angle restrictions at launch. Open loop control histories are generated by the conjugate gradient technique through the use of a digital computer. The time of flight and the missile probability of kill resulting from the use of constant maximum thrust are compared to those resulting from the use of a variable thrust control. Modified author abstract