Energy-heading transients in atmospheric flight guidance for airbreathing hypersonic vehicles

A time-range-fuel optimization problem is formulated for an airbreathing, hypersonic vehicle. Singular perturbation theory is used to decompose the problem into simpler subproblems. Analysis of the cruise-dash problem shows the importance of a Mach-limit. Energy-heading transients are studied and a family of trajectories, fairing asymptotically to a cruise condition, are generated.