The Sun position in

aerial combat Aerial warfare is the use of military aircraft and other flying machines in warfare. Aerial warfare includes bombers attacking enemy installations or a concentration of enemy troops or strategic targets; fighter aircraft battling for contro ...

is the

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its Aircraft flight control system, directional flight controls. Some other aircrew, aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are al ...

's ability to position the

aircraft An aircraft ( aircraft) is a vehicle that is able to flight, fly by gaining support from the Atmosphere of Earth, air. It counters the force of gravity by using either Buoyancy, static lift or the Lift (force), dynamic lift of an airfoil, or, i ...

relative to the

Sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...

in relationship to the position of the enemy aircraft. The sun position has had different application to different generations of aircraft. During the period when the

dogfight A dogfight, or dog fight, is an air combat manoeuvring, aerial battle between fighter aircraft that is conducted at close range. Modern terminology for air-to-air combat is air combat manoeuvring (ACM), which refers to tactical situations requir ...

dominated air combat, it was used to make visibility and acquisition of own aircraft difficult for the enemy if the Sun was ''behind'' own aircraft. With the introduction of

infrared homing Infrared homing is a Missile guidance#Passive homing, passive weapon guidance system which uses the infrared (IR) light emission from a target to track and follow it seamlessly. Missiles which use infrared seeking are often referred to as "he ...

air-to-air missile An air-to-air missile (AAM) is a missile fired from an aircraft for the purpose of destroying another aircraft (including unmanned aircraft such as cruise missiles). AAMs are typically powered by one or more rocket motors, usually solid-fuel roc ...

s, the use of the Sun by the pilot was used to confuse the

missile guidance Missile guidance refers to a variety of methods of guiding a missile or a guided bomb to its intended target. The missile's target accuracy is a critical factor for its effectiveness. Guidance systems improve missile accuracy by improving its P ...

system.Shaw, R. (1985) ''Fighter Combat'', p. 59. The advantages of the Sun position were realised early in the history of aerial warfare and is included in the first rule of the ''

Dicta Boelcke The ''Dicta Boelcke'' is a list of fundamental aerial maneuvers of aerial combat formulated by First World War German flying ace Oswald Boelcke. Equipped with one of the first fighter aircraft, Boelcke became Germany's foremost flying ace during ...

''.

Notes

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References

* Shaw, Robert L. (Comm.), ''Fighter Combat: Tactics and Maneuvering'', Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 1985 Aerial warfare tactics