Differential-turn maneuvering

Control harmonization for flight controls which are additional to the conventional ones, such as thrust-vectoring and variable-sweep controls, is examined by means of a hodograph device for the case of flight of a single aircraft under manual control, in one version, or optimal control in another. The use of thrust vectoring in a turning duel formulated as a differential game with energy-modelled vehicles is examined in a preliminary qualitative way. For a craft with sufficient thrust to provide hovering capability, the resulting high turn rates attainable at very low energies greatly enhance evasive capability but do not lend themselves well to offensive exploitation with short-range tail-aspect armament.