Flight Formation Development for Assault Support Aircraft V-22 and C- 130.

摘要

This research paper is to be utilized by aircrew involved in the development of aviation tactics and/or operational test and evaluation. Knowledge of aviation operations is required to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the methodology and information presented to support the project conclusions. The thesis of this research paper is to develop an optimized, mutually supportive formation(s) for the V-22 and C-130. I will use the capabilities and limitations of the human eye to determine an aircraft's POD and correlate it to the aircraft s field of view (FOV). The methodology of research will begin by defining a set of formation principles. My historical research determined those principles to be mutually supportive look-out, maneuverability, flexibility, command and control, protection, self-navigation and unity of effort. To better support the projects POD studies, an understanding of how the human eye interacts with the effects of luminance, target size and contrast is necessary. The project's two case studies (Look-up and Look-down), utilized interpolated data from a report completed by the RAND Corporation. This research project departs from the RAND report by analyzing the POD distances to develop optimized aircraft formations. The research scope provides the necessary assumptions and limitations and includes the following: flight visibilities, search areas, field of view (FOV) restrictions and background to aircraft contrasts. The case study findings determined that the optimum distances to detect incoming aircraft is 2 2.65nm for a 50% POD and 1.6 2nm for a 75% POD. The optimum formation is the three-aircraft division, using the inverted Y formation. For future research and development, additional efforts should be directed towards determining the adverse effects of movement in a formation.