TABLE OF CONTENTS In this section we will discuss briefly the aerodynamic forces acting on a missile. In particular, and unless otherwise specified, we will assume a skid-to-turn missile because this technique is used in the majority of both surface-to-air and air-to-air missile applications (for more details see Section 3.3.2). However, the reader should be cautioned that both the aerodynamics and rigid-body dynamics are highly nonlinear. For a more in-depth discussion of these forces the reader is referred to [2], [6], and [8]. Generally, the magnitude of the forces and moments that act on an air vehicle depend on the combined effects of many different variables. Briefly, the parameters that govern the magnitude of aerodynamic forces and moments include the following: (1) configuration geometry, (2) angle of attack, (3) vehicle size, (4) free-stream velocity, (5) density of the undisturbed air, (6) Reynolds number (i.e., as it relates to viscous effects), and (7) Mach number (i.e., as it relates to compressibility effects). In order to correlate the data for various stream conditions and configurations, the measurements are usually presented in dimensionless form. In practice, however, flow phenomena such as boundary-layer separation, shock-wave/boundary-layer interaction, and compressibility effects limit the range of flow conditions over which the dimensionless force and moment coefficients remain constant. In essence, the motion of the air around an aircraft or missile produces pressure and velocity variations, which produce the aerodynamic forces and moments. As discussed in Section 2.2,...
