Aircraft performance tool
BFM Simulator
Explore how energy, altitude, turn rate, load factor, and aircraft advantages shape a two-circle engagement.
F-16 E–M Dogfight: Energy Trade Through a Two-Circle Fight
Two identical F-16s merge on reciprocal headings and pull 9 g. Before their descending corner turns carry them past one another, they point nose-to-nose, unload to 1 g, accelerate, re-merge, and resume the 9-g descent. At 500 ft MSL, Blue uses a minimum-radius turn to bring its nose onto Red.
Notional teaching model: each aircraft now takes corner speed, turn rate, acceleration, descent rate, and sustained performance from its own altitude-dependent E–M envelope and limits. The max-g entry converts negative Ps into level-flight deceleration until corner speed; transitions from corner to best sustained rate and to Blue’s unsustained minimum-radius boundary remain discrete. Blue then decelerates along the lift-limited boundary until reaching the 1-g level-flight stall. Ps contours run from −1,000 to +500 ft/s in 250-ft/s increments. Dashed gray radius contours are fixed kinematic references—altitude moves the performance envelopes, not the radius lines. The engagement stops when either aircraft records its third valid nose-on PEW.