Assessment
Pilots can pitch the noses of supermaneuverable aircraft up to extreme angles of attack (as much as 70 degrees) allowing them to potentially gain an advantage, by being able to lock on to a target and fire at it, but at the expense of the altitude and/or speed of the aircraft. Quantifying such a potential advantage using metrics was not really possible in the early 1990s—traditional metrics such as instantaneous or sustained turn rate plots did not highlight the differences which pilots described when flying such aircraft. Several research projects were conducted through the 1990s and one in particular, entitled "Performance Assessment of Fighter Aircraft incorporating Advanced Technologies" by Ant Kutschera, not only reviewed the suitability of existing metrics to measure the effects of supermaneuverability, but went on to develop a new metric for quantifying advantages and disadvantages while in flight. The new metric allows a quantitative assessment of the aircraft to be made, in terms which designers, pilots and tacticians alike can easily understand, unlike many newer metrics which combined existing metrics to develop "magic" numbers which have little meaning.
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