FUNDAMENTALS OF CATASTROPHIC FAILURE PREVENTION BY THRUST VECTORING

The authors' proposal to convert military thrust vectoring flight control (TVFC) technologies into civil transport applications, translates combat-agility capabilities into unprecedented night-safety standards. Dealing with the latter, this article compares future vectored-aircraft safety potentials and classes with current unsafe night standards dictated by conventional flight control (CFC). A few simplified analytical results are presented to illustrate new classes and fundamentals of catastrophic failure prevention when TVFC replaces partial or complete loss of CFC in future civil and fighter aircraft.