Performance
A number of terms frequently crop up in discussions of air to air missile performance.
- Launch success zone
- The Launch Success Zone is the range within which there is a high (defined) kill probability against a target that remains unaware of its engagement until the final moment. When alerted visually or by a warning system the target attempts a last-ditch-manoeuvre sequence.
- F-Pole
- A closely related term is the A-Pole. This is the slant range between the launch aircraft and target, at the time of interception. The greater the F-Pole, the greater the confidence that the launch aircraft will achieve air superiority with that missile.
- No-Escape Zone
- The No-Escape Zone is the zone within which there is a high (defined) kill probability against a target even if it has been alerted. This zone is defined as a conical shape with the tip at the missile launch. The cone's length and width are determined by the missile and seeker performance. A missile's speed, range and seeker sensitivity will mostly determine the length of this imaginary cone, while its agility (turn rate) and seeker complexity (speed of detection and ability to detect off axis targets) will determine the width of the cone.
Read more about this topic: Air-to-air Missile
Famous quotes containing the word performance:
“So long as the source of our identity is external—vested in how others judge our performance at work, or how others judge our children’s performance, or how much money we make—we will find ourselves hopelessly flawed, forever short of the ideal.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“What avails it that you are a Christian, if you are not purer than the heathen, if you deny yourself no more, if you are not more religious? I know of many systems of religion esteemed heathenish whose precepts fill the reader with shame, and provoke him to new endeavors, though it be to the performance of rites merely.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“They say all lovers swear more performance than they are able, and yet reserve an ability that they never perform; vowing more than the perfection of ten, and discharging less than the tenth part of one.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)