Thrust Vectoring :: War Technology Technological Essays

Thrust Vectoring Imagine two US Air Force Jets with controls not responding, they are heading right for each other, the pilots don’t have enough time to eject, there’s a mid-air explosion, and the needless death of American servicemen. About one fifth of peacetime fighter losses during the past few years were due to loss of control. Now imagine that the US has been developing the technology to prevent this for the last decade, but due to budget problems this technology was never installed on our fighters. I’m talking about a Thrust Vectoring. This engineering term describes the use of an engines nozzle to direct the force coming from a jet engine in different directions other then straight out the back. Besides tragic, needless deaths, this technology has a military significance for front line fighter jets. With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Americans have seen the devastating power of our Air Force on Countries without a serious Air Defense network, like Is rael or Great Britain. These are countries with not just a Surface to Air Missile (SAM) threat, but an Air Force that can rival ours in its current state. Thrust Vectoring is the technology that will make our fighter jets true rulers of the air, not just on bombing runs, but air-to-air combat, better know as â€Å"Dog Fighting†. Thrust Vectoring was first used in a trivial form on Nazi Germany’s V-2 rockets. These rockets were devastating to the Allies in WWII with their accuracy due to graphite control vanes that helped the guidance of the missile. Modern rockets, both SAMs and Air-to-Air missiles have been using thrust vectoring to increase their agility in flight, and hence make them more lethal. During the Cold War German military planers recognized the shear numbers of Soviet fighters, and believing that any war would include intense Dog Fighting, began to look for ways to even the odds. Wolfgang Herbst with the Messerschmitt-Boelkow-Blohm, now Deutsche Aerospace, Company led a team in Post-Stall engineering. Post-Stall describes a flight condition in which normal flight controls, like flaps, are no longer sufficient to maintain the flight ability of the aircraft. His team investigated new flight laws to describe the movement of an aircraft in Post-Stall flying conditions.