Steady state and transient maneuver problems for a high performance fighter aircraft with and without thrust vectoring are investigated. The steady state aspect of these studies determines control combinations with and without thrust vectoring which optimize selected level-flight point performance criteria including minimum speed, maximum instantaneous range, and maximum sustained turn rate. The transient maneuvers are initiated from straight and level flight and include a longitudinal pitch-up to a desired fuselage pointing angle and a lateral-directional transition (wind-up) to a desired steady level turn rate. For the transient maneuvers, a full six-degree-of-freedom model of the aircraft is used with three conventional aerodynamic controls, throttle control and pitch and yaw thrust vectoring control. Each of the control time histories are parameterized so as to include both the rate and range limits of the controls. A nonlinear programming algorithm is used to determine the control parameter values which yield the minimum time to execute the prescribed maneuvers. Results indicate that thrust vectoring does not significantly change the steady state behavior in the scenarios investigated. However, flight times for the transient maneuvers are found to be reduced by up to 28%. The greatest effect of thrust vectoring occurs at low Mach number. / Master of Science