Comparing the Effectiveness of Air-to-Air Fighters: F-86 to F-18 April 1982 Contract MDA903-8 1-C-0312 PIERRE M. SPREY, ING.CHAPTER 1. CHAPTER IT CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI APPENDIX I APPENDIX IL APPENDIX IIT TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION AND PURPOSE ‘THE NATURE OF AIR-TO-AIR COMBAT MEASURES OF EFFECTIVENESS EFFECTIVENESS COMPARISON OF MAJOR FIGHTERS COMPARISON OF COMBAT RESULTS AND ANALYTIC RESULTS: INSIGHTS BACK-UP DATA AND PERFORMANCE-ESTIMATING RELATIONSHIPS PROPOSED FLIGHT TEST APPROACH TO NEW MEA- SURES OF TRANSIENT PERFORMANCE METHOD FOR ESTIMATING FIGHTER COMBAT FUEL AND RANGECHAPTER I INTRODUCTION PURPOSE The purpose of this study is a) to derive and document method for comparing the effectiveness of air-to-air fighters, based on historical combat experience; b) apply this method to the important air-to-air fighters of the last 30 years; ¢) compare the anelytical assessment of these fighters with the combat results they obtained over the last 30 years; and d) derive some insights that may be useful in the conceptual design of the next gener- ation of air-to-air fighters. SCOPE The study addresses only air-to-air effectiveness; air-to-ground con- siderations are excluded, The fighters to be examined are the principal U. fighters from the F-86 to the F-18, plus a small number of particularly sig- nificant foreign fighters, The measures of effectiveness are to be based, wherever possible, on relatively simple, easy-to-obtain technical data. CONTENTS Chapter II describes the nature of air-to-air combat, in air wars from WWII to the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. It also introduces the fighters to be com- pared, Based on the nature of air combat, Chapter III derives measures of ef- fectiveness for comparing air-to-air fighters. Chapter IV calculates estimates of these measures for the principal fighters of the last 30 years and draws overall comparisons. Chapter V tests these analytical comparisons against the