Performance assessment of fighter aircraft incorporating advanced technologies

The performance assessment of modern combat aircraft has been the subject of considerable research in recent years. This thesis considers the performance assessmenat t the preliminary design stage in an aircraft's life, when the amount of data available for calculating metrics will be limited. Conventional metrics do not completely assess agile aircraft. In particular the advantages of future aircraft implementing Thrust Vectoring Control (TVC) and Post Stall Maneouvrability (PSM) are not shown by conventional metrics. 'This thesis reviews the suitability of both conventional and proposed metrics for assessing TVC and PSM. It suggests an extension to existing point performance metrics and then considers a new metric which can be evaluated early in the design cycle. The new metric is analysed via a sensitivity study and a validation study to show that the new metric is suitable. Results and design studies are also included which quantify the changes which are the result of TVC/PSM. Further extensions to the new metric are also briefly considered. Several important results which disagree with traditional thinking are highlighted.