>>3886658>Wow, that's amazing. Do you know what kind of stuff you would do if he gave you a job?Not exactly. They build missiles though, and I have knowledge of rocket propulsion and some of aerodynamics, and I'm an ME major for whatever that's worth, so...
The thing I said that grabbed his attention in the first place, though, was how fascinating I found the rollerons on an AIM-9 Sidewinder. So effective, yet so elegantly simple...
>So, theoretically, if an engine with more thrust (excluding differences in weight, size, etc) is added to a jet, it would be able to perform tighter sustained moves?Exactly. Basically, for a sustained level turn, you'e taking thrust and using it to counteract drag. Drag can be separated into parasitic drag (which is merely dependent on how big and streamlined the jet is while not producing lift), and induced drag (drag produced as a result of lift). The more thrust you have, the more induced drag you can counteract, and thus the more lift you can produce.
Of course, there are other things you can do to reduce induced drag from a given maneuver. I posted the simple relationship between lift and induced drag coefficients in [
>>3883497]. It's been a while since I did the optimization, but I think I found that wing area and aspect ratio were both desirable, such that span was much more important than chord (It was chord*span^3 once aspect ratio was substituted out, IIRC). And of course, a lower weight ALWAYS lets you do more with the same amount of lift, so that's always a good thing.