What does 'USAF profile' mean?

Any official definition?

Educated guess here:
Climb/Cruise/Decent profile. This is somewhat inaccurate as it varies by aircraft type.
This would be something like this; climb-to-cruise altitude, cruise to target, descend to low altitude drop bombs, climb back to cruise, then descend to landing. The idea being that climbing in afterburner to FL400 might not be a good usage of fuel, so they have published profiles to help the pilot efficiently operate the jet. Due to varying requirements with regard to bingo reserves, and other procedures, each service has different requirements.

Some Navy Mission Profiles may be found in this PDF: http://www.vmihosting.com/MWS/Documents ... pter10.pdf (0.6Mb)

"CHAPTER 10 STANDARD MISSION PROFILES 10.1 INTRODUCTION From the beginning to the end of the flight test process, the flight test team must have a working knowledge of the mission and mission profiles against which the aircraft isto be evaluated. This knowledge at the start of the program enables the team to design the test program to concentrate on the mission specific altitudes, airspeeds, loadings, or other requirements which are representative of the mission(s).The preceding chapters discuss in detail the testing required to evaluate specific performance characteristics. The final step for the flight test team is to assimilate all the performance data and determine if the aircraft can perform the required mission(s). This chapter looks at putting all of the performance characteristics together to enable the flight test team to evaluate an aircraft against a given mission profile (Figure 10.1)."
&
2 graphics below from:

JSF - Inventing the Joint Strike Fighter by Dr. Paul Bevilaqua | Lockheed Martin Skunk Works 12 Oct 2009

USN F-35C examples: http://www.nps.edu/Academics/Institutes ... ighter.pdf

spazsinbad wrote:Some Navy Mission Profiles may be found in this PDF: http://www.vmihosting.com/MWS/Documents ... pter10.pdf (0.6Mb)

"CHAPTER 10 STANDARD MISSION PROFILES 10.1 INTRODUCTION From the beginning to the end of the flight test process, the flight test team must have a working knowledge of the mission and mission profiles against which the aircraft isto be evaluated. This knowledge at the start of the program enables the team to design the test program to concentrate on the mission specific altitudes, airspeeds, loadings, or other requirements which are representative of the mission(s).The preceding chapters discuss in detail the testing required to evaluate specific performance characteristics. The final step for the flight test team is to assimilate all the performance data and determine if the aircraft can perform the required mission(s). This chapter looks at putting all of the performance characteristics together to enable the flight test team to evaluate an aircraft against a given mission profile (Figure 10.1)."
&
2 graphics below from:

JSF - Inventing the Joint Strike Fighter by Dr. Paul Bevilaqua | Lockheed Martin Skunk Works 12 Oct 2009

USN F-35C examples: http://www.nps.edu/Academics/Institutes ... ighter.pdf

Thanks a lot.

Went looking for a specific USAF or AirForce F-35A profile to find this PDF which is not really about 'missions' but might be interesting to the 'aerodynerds' here. 'Mission Graphic' is tangential but in this PDF.

Geometric and Computer Analysis of the F-35A Lightning II
Anish Bhatt, Marie Harvey, Ryan Hofmeister

http://www.dept.aoe.vt.edu/~mason/Mason_f/F35ASpr11.pdf (1Mb)