AIR COMBAT MANEUVER KILL PROFESSIONAL

When flight surgeons talk about Gs, they are talking about the inertial effects of the acceleration. In aviation medicine, the effects of acceleration on human physiology are separated according to the body axis through which the acceleration acts. These include body type, physical fitness, age, blood pressure, fatigue or rest status, diet and nutrition, and dehydration. The eight primary factors that determine acceleration tolerance are anatomy and physiology, body orientation with respect to the G vector, magnitude of Gs, duration of Gs, rate of change of Gs, proficiency in performance of self-protection maneuvers, protective equipment, and illnesses or medications.Īdditional factors make the current generation of fighter jocks resemble athletes. Tolerance of high, rapid-onset Gs varies widely from individual to individual and from day to day for each individual. This is why the training of the new-generation fighter pilot affects every aspect of his life, not just those having to do with the stick, throttle, and rudder. In the past, any pilot who had not been properly trained to resist these effects was at grave risk. These design advances allow incorporation of G limiters, which prevent airframe damage and give the pilot the freedom to reach a maneuver limit of a bit over nine Gs in about one and a half seconds. This is what is meant by “high-agility aircraft.” In a modern fighter, the presence of digital, fly-by-wire flight controls permits the use of “relaxed stability criteria.” This means that you can build a basically unstable aircraft, keep it under control with computers, and use it to pull Gs like nothing seen before. Because of the lack of limiters, it is possible to bend an F-4 seriously if it is stressed beyond design limits. In planes such as the F-4, pulling really high Gs is done infrequently and carefully. The pilot who aspires to fly such fighters as the F-16 must first understand that this plane is a different proposition than the fighters of the preceding generation.

AIR COMBAT MANEUVER KILL PROFESSIONAL

Over the last few years, media reports of pilot deaths resulting from G-induced loss of consciousness (G-LOC, or “G-Lock”) in high-performance fighters have underscored the current realities of life for the professional fighter pilot.

Air combat maneuver kill