Thread: How Credible is This?

Originally Posted by Blademaster

Wabpilot,

My thanks. Now I understand what the angle of attack is about. Can you tell me the importance of the angle of attack when it comes to manuevers? I would dare say that AoA would be important when considering the necessary amount of thrust to keep moviing and that the higher AoA is, the more thrust you need to keep moving forward horizontall. Is that correct?

Not exactly. To keep moving horizontal, you need vectored thrust for the, Horizontal axis.


Angle of Attack in Flight

I hope that image is viewable.

It is impossible for a non-TVC aircraft to fly horizontal, with its nose pointed 20-30degrees up, away from its flight path for an extended period. With higher thrust, the flight path would simply fly up to the nose position faster.

With TVC, the thrust can be vectored horizontally, while the nose can point away... (kinda like a space manuever except you incur massive drag penalties)

How does high AoA affect manuevers? For one, you are able to turn tighter, and faster at lower airspeeds, without stalling your aircraft. That translate into nose position, which affects whether you are on the offensive, or defensive or a neutral (nose to nose, or tail to tail). If you get your nose in the general direction of the enemy, it allows your weapons to track and kill him effectively, unless you have weapons that either fly backwards, or have rearward facing radar that can do that. (An Su-27 was rigged to test this with an R-27 missile once.. not sure how it went.)

If you stall in a low-speed high AOA turn... chances are, you'll spin. In an F-16... it goes into this nose high - nose low sequence.

Originally Posted by Blademaster

Wabpilot,

My thanks. Now I understand what the angle of attack is about. Can you tell me the importance of the angle of attack when it comes to manuevers? I would dare say that AoA would be important when considering the necessary amount of thrust to keep moviing and that the higher AoA is, the more thrust you need to keep moving forward horizontall. Is that correct?

As AOA increases, lift generated by the wing increases, to a point. Then, the wing stalls (stops generating lift). Up to the point where the wing stalls, more AOA, more lift. However, the more lift, the more drag. Thus, as AOA increases, if thrust is held constant, the aircraft slows down.