Presented are the results of the application of the method of steepest descent to an engagement between a beam-riding missile and an aircraft. Sought is the optimum flight path of the aircraft for it to evade the missile. The optimization criterion is the maximization of the distance of closest approach between the missile and the aircraft. As formulated, the problem is linear in the control and has a two-sided inequality constraint on the control. Two approaches are taken to determine the optimum evasive flight path. The first starts with an unconstrained control and iterates on this control until it becomes saturated, afterwards treating the switching times as optimization parameters. The second starts with a constrained control and simply involves iterations of the switching times. Both approaches yielded the same results. (Author).

Paper presented at the AIAA Guidance, Control, and Flight Dynamics Conference, Pasadena, Calif., August 12-14, 1968. Also available as Frank J. Seiler Research Laboratory SRL 68-0017 and as AD674809.