AbstractA general formulation of the inverse problem of how to control an airplane when it is performing a prescribed maneuver is presented. The general nonlinear equations of the forced motion of a rigid airplane are written in terms of generalized coordinates. The trajectory of the prescribed maneuver is modeled as a set of dynamic constraints on the previous equations. The equations are directly integrated to obtain the control vector necessary to realize the prescribed maneuver. An application to a fighter aircraft circular- loop simulation is studied as a special case of the proposed technique.