Twisting thrust for supermanoeuvrability: the majority of aircraft engines produce forward or reverse thrust roughly parallel to the fuselage axis. Given variable-geometry exhaust systems, combat aircraft powerplants can also generate substantial jet lift and pitching and yawing movements.

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Technology

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Twisting thrust for supermanoeuvrability: the majority of aircraft engines produce forward or reverse thrust roughly parallel to the fuselage axis. Given variable-geometry exhaust systems, combat aircraft powerplants can also generate substantial jet lift and pitching and yawing movements.

Thrust vectoring, implying changes in both jet orientation and throttle setting, is a problematic term coined by the late Professor Theodore von Karman. The words became reality in the 1960s as the result of:

* the predicted Nato need for dispersible stovl aircraft to avoid NBC strikes and

* the known drawbacks of tail-sitting Vtol projects (namely, difficult piloting and lack of overload/stol capability).

For those trying to conceive a 'flat-riser' stovl ground attack aircraft in the 1950s, the challenge was to install three times as much thrust as normal while retaining a useful amoun...

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