Theory and Practice of Aircraft Performance

CHAPTER 15Manoeuvre Performance

15.1 Overview

This chapter deals with aircraft turn and manoeuvre performance. Turn performance capability is a customer requirement that needs to be substantiated. There is no airworthiness requirement for turn performance, except that it must operate within the certified flight envelope. Only the point performance of turn is dealt with here. Combat manoeuvres are complex. This chapter introduces some basic fighter manoeuvre (BFM) tactics.

The readers are to compute the AJT turn performance as done in Section 15.3. A problem set for this chapter is given in Appendix E.

15.2 Introduction

Aircraft manoeuvre is a transient operation meant for changing the aircraft flight path in a safe manner. It has many possibilities, making its analysis specific to each type of manoeuvre, for example, turning, pull‐up, aerobatics, and so on. Aircraft manoeuvres are executed through the use of aircraft controls and thrust adjustment. Chapter 6 dealt with the aircraft stability and control considerations in which inherent aircraft motion characteristics, for example Dutch roll, spinning, and so on, are discussed. Aircraft manoeuvres are associated with some ‘g’ pull (load factor, n – Chapter 5).

Hard and sudden application will make the aircraft enter into an instantaneous turn, while a gentle, steady application will take the aircraft into a sustained steady turn at lower g loads. This book deals only with steady sustained turns. The worked examples are for ...