Design for Air Combat

aircraft loss rates during a military conflict. This fleet de- terioration has been calculated by application of suitable Lancaster equations2 and a computerized war game. Points 2 and 3 are, in this paper, completely covered only for the battlefield air superiority role, in particular the combat air patrol mission. Section 2 of this paper de- scribes some weight-cost performance relationships de- rived from the systematic variation of important design parameters, such as wing loading, wing shape and thrust to weight ratio. Computations were based on state of the art rubberized engines. Design parameter values range from 0.5 to 1.7 thrust to weight ratio, 40-90 lb/ft2 wing loading and 1.2-2.4 max Mach number. A large group of consistent parametric fighter designs has been evaluated in a sequence of detection, intercept and close-in combat. Some of the relevant system param- eter combinations and their impact on these three phases of air-to-air combat are discussed in Sec. 3. Fighter designs with parameter combinations which achieve maximum individual combat results at a giveri level of system cost are discussed in Sec. 4. The effective- ness of these fighter designs has been analyzed in a fleet environment under constant budget cost. It is shown that an optimum combination of thrust/weight and wing loading can be found for a defined scenario. The concluding sec- tion tries to answer some of the questions which are vital in the design for air combat: 1) Can missile maneuver- ability compensate for lack of air vehicle maneuverabili- ty? 2) Are requirements for offensive and defensive com-