The F-4 Phantom II was the United States' primary air superiority fighter aircraft during the Vietnam War. This airplane epitomized American airpower doctrine during the early Cold War, which diminished the role of air-to-air combat and the air superiority mission. As a result, the F-4 struggled against the Soviet MiG fighters used by the North Vietnamese Air Force. By the end of the Rolling Thunder bombing campaign in 1968, the Phantom traded kills with MiGs at a nearly one-to-one ratio, the worst air combat performance in American history. The aircraft also regularly failed to protect American bombing formations from MiG attacks. A bombing halt from 1968 to 1972 provided a chance for American planners to evaluate their performance and make changes. The Navy began training pilots specifically for air combat, creating the Navy Fighter Weapons School known as "Top Gun" for this purpose. The Air Force instead focused on technological innovation and upgrades to their equipment. The resumption of bombing and air combat in the 1972 Linebacker campaigns proved that the Navy's training practices were effective, while the Air Force's technology changes were not, with kill ratios becoming worse. However, the last three months of the campaign introduced an American ground radar system that proved more effective than Top Gun in improving air-to-air combat performance. By the end of the Vietnam War, the Air Force and Navy overcame the inherent problems with the Phantom, which were mostly of their own making.

Thesis (M.A. in Security Studies (Homeland Security and Defense))--Naval Postgraduate School, December 2009. / Thesis Advisor(s): Looney, Robert E. ; McNab, Robert M. "December 2009." Description based on title screen as viewed on January 27, 2010. Author(s) subject terms: F-22, MQ-1, MQ-9, UCAV, homeland defense, aircraft effectiveness, defense spending, manned flight, unmanned flight. Includes bibliographical references (p. 71-76). Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Edith Cowan University, 2006. / Submitted to the Faculty of Computing, Health and Science. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Carleton University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 259-270). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis--Air Command and Staff College, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, April 2005. / "April 2007." Thesis advisor: Lt. Col. James A. Rothenflue. Performed by Air University Press (AUL/LP), Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, Ala. "AU/ACSC/2927/2004-05." Includes bibliographical references (p. 35-37). Also available online from the Air University Research Information Management System (AURIMS) and the DTIC Online Web sites.

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Carleton University, 1993. / Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

This qualitative study adopts a criminological perspective to investigate how newspaper headlines surrounding western-raised female Foreign Terrorist Fighters (FTFs) are being framed by the British media. This investigation employs a case study approach, to thematically analyse how narratives surrounding a high profile British FTF, Shamima Begum, were framed by headlines of British newspapers once she requested repatriation to the United Kingdom (UK) after four years as a FTF in Syria. When Begum left UK in 2015, aged 15, the media narrative leant towards suggestions of Begum being considered to be a victim. Therefore, this study looks at how the more recent newspaper headlines frame Begums more complex narrative in 2019 when the UK was faced with the conundrum as to how to respond the repatriation request of a British-born female FTF who was also heavily pregnant at the time. Therefore, the focused timeframe of the study is from February 2019, until August 2019. Only the headlines of British newspapers were examined to see how the snapshot of the framed narratives surrounding Begum during this time were presented. The aim was to investigate from a criminological perspective whether the choice of framing was creating a societal perception as to whether the FTF is a perpetrator or victim, according to the societal “trial by media” that newspapers often inspire. Whilst objectivity is always an issue, this study is not designed to make any judgment either way in regards to the Begum case or her agency in her FTF experience but to simply raise awareness as to how narrative around perpetrators or victims can create societal and individual biases and can serve to reduce or increase fear of the “other”. This study demonstrated that the framing chosen by the media increases the level of bias with the focus on the security risk and punishment aspects of the discussion surrounding Begums situation. This is important to be aware of as this in turn significantly contributes to greater racial, ethnic or religious tension within society. Unless we address how perpetrators and victims are discussed, then we increase the risk of greater racial, ethnic or religious tension within society which can create a multitude of other societal and criminological issues.

Control law design can be an iterative and time-consuming process. The design procedure can often include manual tuning, not uncommonly in the form of trial and error. Modern software tools may alleviate this process but are generally not developed for use within any specific industry. There is therefore an apparent need to develop field-specific tools to facilitate control law design.The main contribution of this thesis is the investigation of a systematic and simplified approach to semi-automatic generation of control law parameters for generic fighter aircraft. The investigated method aims to reduce human workload and time spent on complex decision making in the early stages of aircraft development. The method presented is based on gain scheduled LQI-control with piece-wise linear interpolation. A solution to the automated tuning problem of the associated weighting matrices Q and R is investigated. The method is based on an LQ-optimal eigenstructure assignment. However, the derived method suffers from problem regarding practical implementation, such as the seemingly narrow LQ-optimal root-loci of the linearized aircraft model.Furthermore, the inherent problem of hidden coupling is discussed in relation to gain scheduled controllers based on conventional series expansion linearization. An alternative linearization method is used in order to circumvent this problem. Moreover, the possible benefits and disadvantages of control allocation is addressed in the context of actuator redundancy. It is concluded that one may achieve a somewhat simpler handling of constraints at the expense of some model accuracy due to the inevitable exclusion of servo dynamics.

No description available.

Two mathematical models are applied to the study of a flight performance problem for an air-superiority fighter aircraft. The first model considers the body axes angular rates as control variables and is accordingly referred to as the body rate model. The second model is a rigid body model featuring rotational dynamics governed by the primary control surface deflections. The body rate model is intermediate between a point-mass model and rigid body model and accordingly, useful for preliminary design applications. Comparisons between the two models are made to determine the utility of each when applied to a particular flight problem. The integral flight performance problem combines notions of roll and pitch agility in a roll reversal maneuver. The flight problem is formulated as an optimal control problem for each of the models. Parameter variations in the initial flight condition specified by the load factor, and in the available roll and pitch control powers were studied and used to compare the models. The results indicate deficiencies in the body rate model as an accurate predictor of agile aircraft characteristics. / Master of Science