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Energy–Maneuverability Theory (aircraft performance)

Description

Energy–maneuverability theory is a model of aircraft performance. It was developed by Col. John Boyd, and is useful in describing an aircraft’s performance as the total of kinetic and potential energies or aircraft specific energy. It relates the thrust, weight, drag, wing area, and other flight characteristics of an aircraft into a quantitative model. This allows combat capabilities of various aircraft or prospective design trade-offs to be predicted and compared.
All of these aspects of airplane performance are compressed into a single value by the formula shown here.

Related formulas

Variables

Psaircraft performance (m/s)
vvelocity (m/s)
Tthrust (N)
FDdrag (N)
Wweight (N)