ABSTRACT
The development of the equations for a six degree-of-freedom (6-DOF) model accurately describes the motion of a rigid body through air. With a 6-DOF model in hand, the aeroballistician can examine the effects of a given configuration. The word given was italicized for emphasis because the aeroballistician must know the configuration properties before he/she analyzes the projectile. The implications of this are that without other tools to determine what needs to be changed in a design to alter the projectile behavior, one must simply guess at a new configuration, determine the aerodynamic coefficients, and reanalyze. This process can be very inefficient. The solution to this problem is to develop a theory that can be used to quickly determine what must be changed in a projectile to alter its flight behavior, make the changes, and reassess. This is the topic for the remainder of this chapter.
