Pete Bonanni - The Art of the Kill

Here’s how turn circles and turning room are related.

A bandit turns his jet to defend against your attack. You need to get displacement from the bandit in the horizontal or vertical in order to turn and stay behind him. If you try to get displacement while you are still outside the bandit’s turn circle, it will not work. Why? Because if you are outside the bandit’s turn circle, the bandit can get around the turn and meet you close to head-on. This means that the bandit can turn and take away your turning room. Figure 2-7 shows a fighter turning for lateral offset outside a defender’s turn circle.

The bandit just keeps pulling, leaving the defender with no turning room. This same principle also works in the vertical. Figure 2-8 shows a fighter climbing, doing an old maneuver called a “high yo-yo.”

It is very dangerous to try to get turning room in the vertical, outside the bandit’s turn circle. If you are climbing in the vertical outside or close to the bandit’s turn circle, the bandit can get his nose around on you. When you pass at high aspect, the bandit will be nose high while you will be nose low. The bandit gets the first use of gravity to increase his radial G as you pass and will probably get behind you. For this reason, do not try to get turning room outside the bandit’s turn circle.

Any maneuvering you do outside the bandit’s turn circle will delay you from getting inside the bandit’s turn circle. You must be inside the bandit’s turn circle in order to turn and solve the BFM problem. In the next section, we will describe how to determine if you are inside or outside the turn circle of the bandit and how to use BFM to get and stay in weapons parameters.

The reason you are out there burning jet fuel is simple: to get into weapons parameters and shoot. BFM is real simple against a guy hanging in a chute. All you have to do is watch out for him shooting at you with his pistol as you fly by and wave. Anytime you can take a shot and end the fight, do it. The problem is that when you start from 1.0 to 1.5 nm [18] nm — nautical miles behind the bandit and he turns, you will only be in AIM-9M parameters for a very short time. The AIM-9M is just like every other heat missile out there today — it doesn’t like the high line-of-sight rates generated by targets in tight, turning fights. You have time for one shot. If you miss, you had better be ready to put some offensive BFM on him, or you will end up wearing an AA-11 Archer. The end result of your best offensive BFM will be a gun shot. Here is how you do it.

The bandit turns. The first question you must ask yourself is “Am I inside or outside the bandit’s turn circle?”

How do you know? Watch the bandit’s turn.

If the bandit’s present turn rate will force his nose on you or even close to you, you are outside the bandit’s turn circle. For modern fighters at high G, you are normally outside the bandit’s turn circle at ranges outside 2 nm. At 1 nm, you are normally inside the bandit’s turn circle, and between these ranges, you are in a transition zone. These ranges, of course, do not really matter to a fighter pilot. When you start behind a bandit, you simply fight what you see. As the bandit turns, you predict where he is going and maneuver based on this prediction. For example, if the bandit is only pulling 4 Gs, then at 2 nm you are still inside his turn circle. Figure 2-9 shows the difference between starting at 2 nm from a 4 G target and starting at 2 nm from a 7 G target.

Most fighter pilots will not pull only 4 Gs, however, when they are in danger of dying. Still, you fight what you see.

If you are outside the bandit’s turn circle at the beginning of the fight, you are not in an offensive fight — you are in a head-on BFM fight. Head-on BFM is the subject of Chapter 4, but for now, just think about an AIM-9M shot in this situation. The bandit cannot shoot you until he gets his nose around to within about 40° of your jet. You should be able to get one good missile shot at him before he forces you inside R min.

Flying good offensive BFM against a bandit will put him right in your gun sights. You’ll get him there by understanding the dynamics of getting into position, closing and firing.

It is time to discuss how and when we turn to stay behind the bandit. You are inside 1.5 nm on a hard turning bandit, and you need turning room to get around on his six. The first step is to observe the bandit’s turn. If you are outside the bandit’s turn circle, get ready for a head-on BFM fight. If you are near or inside the bandit’s turn circle, you have a positional advantage that you can keep. Shoot, if a shot presents itself, but don’t get mesmerized watching your own missile and forget to BFM. Next, drive to where the bandit started his turn. If the bandit drops flares or chaff, he will mark the point in the sky where he started his turn. Drive to this position (called the entry window). Figure 2-10 shows the entry window. The entry window is located inside the bandit’s turn circle. You can start your high G turn into the bandit once you arrive inside this window.

In Figure 2-10, the F-16 drove in a lag pursuit course to a position inside the bandit’s turn circle. By driving to this position, the F-16 gained horizontal turning room that the bandit can’t use or take away. You know you are at the entry window and must start your turn when the bandit is approximately 30° off your nose.

When you get into this relationship with the bandit, start your turn. Remember corner velocity. If you arrive at the window too fast or too slow, you will get stuck in lag pursuit because you will not have sufficient turn rate to get your nose out in front of the bandit.

The next step is to pull 7 to 8 Gs into the bandit. As you come around the corner, keep your nose in lag. If you see the nose of your jet approaching pure pursuit, ease up on the G. Hold this lag pursuit course until you get within 3,000 feet of the bandit. At this range, go to lead pursuit and get ready for a gun shot.

When you arrive inside 3,000 feet on the bandit with your nose in pure or lead pursuit, your throttle controls your overtake. Note this. In close to the bandit, with your angle-off less than 45° and your nose in pure or lead pursuit, the position of your throttle controls your closure. When you get saddled up for a gun shot, you must match airspeed with the target. In most cases, this will require constant movement of the throttle. In addition to banging the throttle off both stops, you may have to maneuver out of plane to control your airspeed. If a throttle reduction and the speed brakes don’t slow you down enough, roll the jet to orient your lift vector out of the bandit’s plane-of-motion and pull. Hold this lag pursuit pull for about two seconds; then ease off the G and watch the bandit. When he starts to move forward on your canopy, it is time to pull back into him. Pull your lift vector out in front of the bandit as you pull down.