Fighter aircraft
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Fighter aircraft are
fixed-wing A fixed-wing aircraft is a heavier-than-air flying machine, such as an airplane, which is capable of flight using wings that generate lift caused by the aircraft's forward airspeed and the shape of the wings. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct ...
military aircraft A military aircraft is any fixed-wing or rotary-wing aircraft that is operated by a legal or insurrectionary armed service of any type. Military aircraft can be either combat or non-combat: * Combat aircraft are designed to destroy enemy equi ...
designed primarily for
air-to-air combat Air combat manoeuvring (also known as ACM or dogfighting) is the tactical art of moving, turning and/or situating one's fighter aircraft in order to attain a position from which an attack can be made on another aircraft. Air combat manoeuvres ...
. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air superiority of the
battlespace Battlespace or battle-space is a term used to signify a unified military strategy to integrate and combine armed forces for the military theatre of operations, including air, information, land, sea, cyber and outer space to achieve milit ...
. Domination of the airspace above a battlefield permits
bombers A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped from an aircra ...
and attack aircraft to engage in tactical and
strategic bombing Strategic bombing is a military strategy used in total war with the goal of defeating the enemy by destroying its morale, its economic ability to produce and transport materiel to the theatres of military operations, or both. It is a systematica ...
of enemy targets. The key performance features of a fighter include not only its
firepower Firepower is the military capability to direct force at an enemy. (It is not to be confused with the concept of rate of fire, which describes the cycling of the firing mechanism in a weapon system.) Firepower involves the whole range of potenti ...
but also its high speed and maneuverability relative to the target aircraft. The success or failure of a combatant's efforts to gain air superiority hinges on several factors including the skill of its pilots, the tactical soundness of its doctrine for deploying its fighters, and the numbers and performance of those fighters. Many modern fighter aircraft also have secondary capabilities such as ground attack and some types, such as fighter-bombers, are designed from the outset for dual roles. Other fighter designs are highly specialized while still filling the main air superiority role, and these include the interceptor,
heavy fighter A heavy fighter is a historic category of fighter aircraft produced in the 1930s and 1940s, designed to carry heavier weapons, and/or operate at longer ranges than light fighter aircraft. To achieve performance, most heavy fighters were twin-eng ...
, and
night fighter A night fighter (also known as all-weather fighter or all-weather interceptor for a period of time after the Second World War) is a fighter aircraft adapted for use at night or in other times of bad visibility. Night fighters began to be used i ...
.


Classification

A fighter aircraft is primarily designed for
air-to-air combat Air combat manoeuvring (also known as ACM or dogfighting) is the tactical art of moving, turning and/or situating one's fighter aircraft in order to attain a position from which an attack can be made on another aircraft. Air combat manoeuvres ...
. A given type may be designed for specific combat conditions, and in some cases for additional roles such as air-to-ground fighting. Historically the British Royal Flying Corps and
Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...
referred to them as "
scouts Scouting, also known as the Scout Movement, is a worldwide youth movement employing the Scout method, a program of informal education with an emphasis on practical outdoor activities, including camping, woodcraft, aquatics, hiking, backpack ...
" until the early 1920s, while the
U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cl ...
called them "pursuit" aircraft until the late 1940s. The UK changed to calling them fighters in the 1920s, while the US Army did so in the 1940s. A short-range fighter designed to defend against incoming enemy aircraft is known as an interceptor. Recognized classes of fighter include: *
Air superiority fighter An air superiority fighter (or air-superiority fighter) is a fighter aircraft designed to seize control of enemy airspace by establishing tactical dominance (air superiority) over the opposing air force. Air-superiority fighters are primarily t ...
* Fighter-bomber *
Heavy fighter A heavy fighter is a historic category of fighter aircraft produced in the 1930s and 1940s, designed to carry heavier weapons, and/or operate at longer ranges than light fighter aircraft. To achieve performance, most heavy fighters were twin-eng ...
* Interceptor * Light fighter * All-weather fighter (including the
night fighter A night fighter (also known as all-weather fighter or all-weather interceptor for a period of time after the Second World War) is a fighter aircraft adapted for use at night or in other times of bad visibility. Night fighters began to be used i ...
) * Reconnaissance fighter * Strategic fighter (including the
escort fighter The escort fighter was a concept for a fighter aircraft designed to escort bombers to and from their targets. An escort fighter needed range long enough to reach the target, loiter over it for the duration of the raid to defend the bombers, and ...
and strike fighter) Of these, the Fighter-bomber, reconnaissance fighter and strike fighter classes are dual-role, possessing qualities of the fighter alongside some other battlefield role. Some fighter designs may be developed in variants performing other roles entirely, such as ground attack or unarmed
reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities. Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops (skirmisher ...
. This may be for political or national security reasons, for advertising purposes, or other reasons. The
Sopwith Camel The Sopwith Camel is a British First World War single-seat biplane fighter aircraft that was introduced on the Western Front in 1917. It was developed by the Sopwith Aviation Company as a successor to the Sopwith Pup and became one of the ...
and other "fighting scouts" of World War I performed a great deal of ground-attack work. In World War II, the
USAAF The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...
and
RAF The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
often favored fighters over dedicated light bombers or dive bombers, and types such as the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt and
Hawker Hurricane The Hawker Hurricane is a British single-seat fighter aircraft of the 1930s–40s which was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd. for service with the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was overshadowed in the public consciousness b ...
that were no longer competitive as aerial combat fighters were relegated to ground attack. Several aircraft, such as the F-111 and F-117, have received fighter designations though they had no fighter capability due to political or other reasons. The F-111B variant was originally intended for a fighter role with the
U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...
, but it was canceled. This blurring follows the use of fighters from their earliest days for "attack" or "strike" operations against ground targets by means of
strafing Strafing is the military practice of attacking ground targets from low-flying aircraft using aircraft-mounted automatic weapons. Less commonly, the term is used by extension to describe high-speed firing runs by any land or naval craft such ...
or dropping small bombs and incendiaries. Versatile multi role fighter-bombers such as the
McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet The McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet is an all-weather, twinjet, twin-engine, supersonic aircraft, supersonic, carrier-based aircraft, carrier-capable, Multirole combat aircraft, multirole combat aircraft, designed as both a Fighter aircraft, ...
are a less expensive option than having a range of specialized aircraft types. Some of the most expensive fighters such as the US
Grumman F-14 Tomcat The Grumman F-14 Tomcat is an American carrier-capable supersonic, twin-engine, two-seat, twin-tail, variable-sweep wing fighter aircraft. The Tomcat was developed for the United States Navy's Naval Fighter Experimental (VFX) program after the ...
, McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle,
Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor is an American single-seat, twin-engine, all-weather stealth tactical fighter aircraft developed for the United States Air Force (USAF). As the result of the USAF's Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program, th ...
and Russian Sukhoi Su-27 were employed as all-weather
interceptors An interceptor aircraft, or simply interceptor, is a type of fighter aircraft designed specifically for the defensive interception role against an attacking enemy aircraft, particularly bombers and reconnaissance aircraft. Aircraft that are ca ...
as well as
air superiority fighter An air superiority fighter (or air-superiority fighter) is a fighter aircraft designed to seize control of enemy airspace by establishing tactical dominance (air superiority) over the opposing air force. Air-superiority fighters are primarily t ...
aircraft, while commonly developing air-to-ground roles late in their careers. An interceptor is generally an aircraft intended to target (or intercept) bombers and so often trades maneuverability for climb rate. As a part of military nomenclature, a letter is often assigned to various types of aircraft to indicate their use, along with a number to indicate the specific aircraft. The letters used to designate a fighter differ in various countries. In the English-speaking world, "F" is often now used to indicate a fighter (e.g.
Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is an American family of single-seat, single-engine, all-weather Stealth aircraft, stealth multirole combat aircraft that is intended to perform both Air superiority fighter, air superiority and attack ...
or Supermarine Spitfire F.22), though "P" used to be used in the US for pursuit (e.g.
Curtiss P-40 Warhawk The Curtiss P-40 Warhawk is an American single-engined, single-seat, all-metal fighter and ground-attack aircraft that first flew in 1938. The P-40 design was a modification of the previous Curtiss P-36 Hawk which reduced development time an ...
), a translation of the French "C" ( Dewoitine D.520 C.1) for ''Chasseur'' while in Russia "I" was used for ''Istrebitel'', or exterminator (
Polikarpov I-16 The Polikarpov I-16 (russian: Поликарпов И-16) is a Soviet single-engine single-seat fighter aircraft of revolutionary design; it was the world's first low-wing cantilever monoplane fighter with retractable landing gear to attain ...
).


Air superiority fighter

As fighter types have proliferated, the air superiority fighter emerged as a specific role at the pinnacle of speed, maneuverability, and air-to-air weapon systems – able to hold its own against all other fighters and establish its dominance in the skies above the battlefield.


Interceptor

The interceptor is a fighter designed specifically to intercept and engage approaching enemy aircraft. There are two general classes of interceptor: relatively
lightweight Lightweight is a weight class in combat sports and rowing. Boxing Professional boxing The lightweight division is over 130 pounds (59 kilograms) and up to 135 pounds (61.2 kilograms) weight class in the sport of boxing. Notable lightweight ...
aircraft in the point-defence role, built for fast reaction, high performance and with a short range, and heavier aircraft with more comprehensive avionics and designed to fly at night or in all weathers and to operate over longer ranges. Originating during World War I, by 1929 this class of fighters had become known as the interceptor.


Night and all-weather fighters

The equipment necessary for daytime flight is inadequate when flying at night or in poor visibility. The night fighter was developed during World War I with additional equipment to aid the pilot in flying straight, navigating and finding the target. From modified variants of the Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2c in 1915, the night fighter has evolved into the highly capable all-weather fighter.


Strategic fighters

The strategic fighter is a fast, heavily armed and long-range type, able to act as an
escort fighter The escort fighter was a concept for a fighter aircraft designed to escort bombers to and from their targets. An escort fighter needed range long enough to reach the target, loiter over it for the duration of the raid to defend the bombers, and ...
protecting
bombers A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped from an aircra ...
, to carry out offensive sorties of its own as a penetration fighter and maintain standing patrols at significant distance from its home base.
Bombers A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry (such as bombs), launching torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped from an aircra ...
are vulnerable due to their low speed, large size and poor maneuvrability. The escort fighter was developed during World War II to come between the bombers and enemy attackers as a protective shield. The primary requirement was for long range, with several
heavy fighter A heavy fighter is a historic category of fighter aircraft produced in the 1930s and 1940s, designed to carry heavier weapons, and/or operate at longer ranges than light fighter aircraft. To achieve performance, most heavy fighters were twin-eng ...
s given the role. However they too proved unwieldy and vulnerable, so as the war progressed techniques such as
drop tank In aviation, a drop tank (external tank, wing tank or belly tank) is used to describe auxiliary fuel tanks externally carried by aircraft. A drop tank is expendable and often capable of being jettisoned. External tanks are commonplace on modern ...
s were developed to extend the range of more nimble conventional fighters. The penetration fighter is typically also fitted for the ground-attack role, and so is able to defend itself while conducting attack sorties.


Historical overview

Since World War I, achieving and maintaining air superiority has been considered essential for victory in
conventional warfare Conventional warfare is a form of warfare conducted by using conventional weapons and battlefield tactics between two or more states in open confrontation. The forces on each side are well-defined and fight by using weapons that target primari ...
. Fighters continued to be developed throughout World War I, to deny enemy aircraft and
dirigibles An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air. In early d ...
the ability to gather information by
reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities. Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops (skirmisher ...
over the battlefield. Early fighters were very small and lightly armed by later standards, and most were biplanes built with a wooden frame covered with fabric, and a maximum airspeed of about . As control of the airspace over armies became increasingly important, all of the major powers developed fighters to support their military operations. Between the wars, wood was largely replaced in part or whole by metal tubing, and finally aluminum stressed skin structures (monocoque) began to predominate. By
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, most fighters were all-metal
monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing con ...
s armed with batteries of
machine gun A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) ar ...
s or
cannons A cannon is a large- caliber gun classified as a type of artillery, which usually launches a projectile using explosive chemical propellant. Gunpowder ("black powder") was the primary propellant before the invention of smokeless powder dur ...
and some were capable of speeds approaching . Most fighters up to this point had one engine, but a number of twin-engine fighters were built; however they were found to be outmatched against single-engine fighters and were relegated to other tasks, such as night fighters equipped with primitive radar sets. By the end of the war,
turbojet The turbojet is an airbreathing jet engine which is typically used in aircraft. It consists of a gas turbine with a propelling nozzle. The gas turbine has an air inlet which includes inlet guide vanes, a compressor, a combustion chamber, and ...
engines were replacing piston engines as the means of propulsion, further increasing aircraft speed. Since the weight of the turbojet engine was far less than a piston engine, having two engines was no longer a handicap and one or two were used, depending on requirements. This in turn required the development of ejection seats so the pilot could escape, and
G-suit A g-suit, or anti-''g'' suit, is a flight suit worn by aviators and astronauts who are subject to high levels of acceleration force ( g). It is designed to prevent a black-out and g-LOC (g-induced loss of consciousness) caused by the blood pool ...
s to counter the much greater forces being applied to the pilot during maneuvers. In the 1950s,
radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, w ...
was fitted to day fighters, since due to ever increasing air-to-air weapon ranges, pilots could no longer see far enough ahead to prepare for the opposition. Subsequently, radar capabilities grew enormously and are now the primary method of
target acquisition Target acquisition is the detection and identification of the location of a target in sufficient detail to permit the effective employment of lethal and non-lethal means. The term is used for a broad area of applications. A "target" here is an e ...
. Wings were made thinner and swept back to reduce transonic drag, which required new manufacturing methods to obtain sufficient strength. Skins were no longer sheet metal riveted to a structure, but milled from large slabs of alloy. The sound barrier was broken, and after a few false starts due to required changes in controls, speeds quickly reached Mach 2, past which aircraft cannot maneuver sufficiently to avoid attack.
Air-to-air missile The newest and the oldest member of Rafael's Python family of AAM for comparisons, Python-5 (displayed lower-front) and Shafrir-1 (upper-back) An air-to-air missile (AAM) is a missile fired from an aircraft for the purpose of destroying a ...
s largely replaced guns and rockets in the early 1960s since both were believed unusable at the speeds being attained, however the
Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
showed that guns still had a role to play, and most fighters built since then are fitted with cannon (typically between in caliber) in addition to missiles. Most modern combat aircraft can carry at least a pair of air-to-air missiles. In the 1970s, turbofans replaced turbojets, improving fuel economy enough that the last piston engine support aircraft could be replaced with jets, making multi-role combat aircraft possible. Honeycomb structures began to replace milled structures, and the first composite components began to appear on components subjected to little stress. With the steady improvements in computers, defensive systems have become increasingly efficient. To counter this, stealth technologies have been pursued by the United States, Russia, India and China. The first step was to find ways to reduce the aircraft's reflectivity to radar waves by burying the engines, eliminating sharp corners and diverting any reflections away from the radar sets of opposing forces. Various materials were found to absorb the energy from radar waves, and were incorporated into special finishes that have since found widespread application. Composite structures have become widespread, including major structural components, and have helped to counterbalance the steady increases in aircraft weight—most modern fighters are larger and heavier than World War II medium bombers. Because of the importance of air superiority, since the early days of aerial combat armed forces have constantly competed to develop technologically superior fighters and to deploy these fighters in greater numbers, and fielding a viable fighter fleet consumes a substantial proportion of the defense budgets of modern armed forces. The global combat aircraft market was worth $45.75 billion in 2017 and is projected by
Frost & Sullivan Frost & Sullivan is an American business consulting firm. It offers market research and analysis, growth strategy consulting, and corporate training. It has about 45 offices in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Europe; the principal office is in Sa ...
at $47.2 billion in 2026: 35% modernization programs and 65% aircraft purchases, dominated by the
Lockheed Martin F-35 The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is an American family of single-seat, single-engine, all-weather stealth multirole combat aircraft that is intended to perform both air superiority and strike missions. It is also able to provide ele ...
with 3,000 deliveries over 20 years.


Piston engine fighters


World War I

The word "fighter" was first used to describe a two-seat aircraft carrying a machine gun (mounted on a pedestal) and its operator as well as the
pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...
. Although the term was coined in the United Kingdom, the first examples were the French Voisin pushers beginning in 1910, and a
Voisin III The Voisin III was a French World War I two-seat pusher biplane multi-purpose aircraft developed by Voisin in 1914 as a more powerful version of the 1912 Voisin I. It is notable for being the aircraft used for the first successful shooting dow ...
would be the first to shoot down another aircraft, on 5 October 1914. However at the outbreak of
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, front-line aircraft were mostly unarmed and used almost exclusively for
reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities. Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops (skirmisher ...
. On 15 August 1914,
Miodrag Tomić Miodrag Tomić ( sr-Cyrl, Миодраг Томић;  – 20 February 1962) was a Serbian and Yugoslav military pilot who flew during the Balkan Wars and World War I. Tomić belonged to the first class of six Serbian pilots trained in F ...
encountered an enemy airplane while on a reconnaissance flight over Austria-Hungary which fired at his aircraft with a revolver, so Tomić fired back. It was believed to be the first exchange of fire between aircraft. Within weeks, all Serbian and Austro-Hungarian aircraft were armed. Another type of military aircraft formed the basis for an effective "fighter" in the modern sense of the word. It was based on small fast aircraft developed before the war for
air racing Air racing is a type of motorsport that involves airplanes or other types of aircraft that compete over a fixed course, with the winner either returning the shortest time, the one to complete it with the most points, or to come closest to a prev ...
such with the Gordon Bennett Cup and
Schneider Trophy The Coupe d'Aviation Maritime Jacques Schneider, also known as the Schneider Trophy, Schneider Prize or (incorrectly) the Schneider Cup is a trophy that was awarded annually (and later, biennially) to the winner of a race for seaplanes and flying ...
. The military scout airplane was not expected to carry serious armament, but rather to rely on speed to "scout" a location, and return quickly to report, making it a flying horse. British scout aircraft, in this sense, included the
Sopwith Tabloid The Sopwith Tabloid and Sopwith Schneider (floatplane) were British biplanes, originally designed as sports aircraft and later adapted for military use. They were among the first successful types to be built by the Sopwith Aviation Company. The ...
and
Bristol Scout The Bristol Scout was a single-seat rotary-engined biplane originally designed as a racing aircraft. Like similar fast, light aircraft of the period it was used by the RNAS and the RFC as a " scout", or fast reconnaissance type. It was one o ...
. The French and the Germans didn't have an equivalent as they used two seaters for reconnaissance, such as the
Morane-Saulnier L The Morane-Saulnier L, or Morane-Saulnier Type L, or officially MoS-3, was a French parasol wing one or two-seat scout aeroplane of the First World War. The Type L became one of the first successful fighter aircraft when it was fitted with a si ...
, but would later modify pre-war racing aircraft into armed single seaters. It was quickly found that these were of little use since the pilot couldn't record what he saw while also flying, while military leaders usually ignored what the pilots reported. Attempts were made with handheld weapons such as pistols and rifles and even light machine guns, but these were ineffective and cumbersome.Woodman, 1989, p.33 The next advance came with the fixed forward-firing machine gun, so that the pilot pointed the entire aircraft at the target and fired the gun, instead of relying on a second gunner.
Roland Garros (aviator) Eugène Adrien Roland Georges Garros (; 6 October 1888 – 5 October 1918) was a French aviation pioneer and fighter pilot. Garros began a career in aviation in 1909 and performed many early feats before joining the French army and becoming o ...
bolted metal deflector plates to the propeller so that it would not shoot itself out of the sky and a number of
Morane-Saulnier N The Morane-Saulnier N, also known as the Morane-Saulnier Type N, was a French monoplane fighter aircraft of the First World War. Designed and manufactured by Morane-Saulnier, the Type N entered service in April 1915 with the ''Aéronautique Mili ...
s were modified. The technique proved effective, however the deflected bullets were still highly dangerous. Soon after the commencement of the war, pilots armed themselves with pistols,
carbines A carbine ( or ) is a long gun that has a barrel shortened from its original length. Most modern carbines are rifles that are compact versions of a longer rifle or are rifles chambered for less powerful cartridges. The smaller size and light ...
,
grenade A grenade is an explosive weapon typically thrown by hand (also called hand grenade), but can also refer to a shell (explosive projectile) shot from the muzzle of a rifle (as a rifle grenade) or a grenade launcher. A modern hand grenade genera ...
s, and an assortment of improvised weapons. Many of these proved ineffective as the pilot had to fly his airplane while attempting to aim a handheld weapon and make a difficult deflection shot. The first step in finding a real solution was to mount the weapon on the aircraft, but the propeller remained a problem since the best direction to shoot is straight ahead. Numerous solutions were tried. A second crew member behind the pilot could aim and fire a swivel-mounted machine gun at enemy airplanes; however, this limited the area of coverage chiefly to the rear hemisphere, and effective coordination of the pilot's maneuvering with the gunner's aiming was difficult. This option was chiefly employed as a defensive measure on two-seater reconnaissance aircraft from 1915 on. Both the
SPAD S.A The SPAD S.A (also called S.A.L.) was a French two-seat tractor biplane first flown in 1915. It was used by France and Russia in the early stages of the First World War in the fighter and reconnaissance roles. It was a unique aircraft that carrie ...
and the Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.9 added a second crewman ahead of the engine in a pod but this was both hazardous to the second crewman and limited performance. The Sopwith L.R.T.Tr. similarly added a pod on the top wing with no better luck. An alternative was to build a "pusher" scout such as the Airco DH.2, with the propeller mounted behind the pilot. The main drawback was that the high drag of a pusher type's tail structure made it slower than a similar "tractor" aircraft. A better solution for a single seat scout was to mount the machine gun (rifles and pistols having been dispensed with) to fire forwards but outside the propeller arc. Wing guns were tried but the unreliable weapons available required frequent clearing of jammed rounds and misfires and remained impractical until after the war. Mounting the machine gun over the top wing worked well and was used long after the ideal solution was found. The Nieuport 11 of 1916 used this system with considerable success, however, this placement made aiming and reloading difficult but would continue to be used throughout the war as the weapons used were lighter and had a higher rate of fire than synchronized weapons. The British
Foster mounting The Foster mounting was a device fitted to some fighter aircraft of the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War. It was designed to enable a machine gun (in practice, a Lewis Gun) to fire ''over'', rather than ''through'' the arc of the spin ...
and several French mountings were specifically designed for this kind of application, fitted with either the Hotchkiss or Lewis Machine gun, which due to their design were unsuitable for synchronizing. The need to arm a tractor scout with a forward-firing gun whose bullets passed through the propeller arc was evident even before the outbreak of war and inventors in both France and Germany devised mechanisms that could time the firing of the individual rounds to avoid hitting the propeller blades. Franz Schneider, a Swiss engineer, had patented such a device in Germany in 1913, but his original work was not followed up. French aircraft designer Raymond Saulnier patented a practical device in April 1914, but trials were unsuccessful because of the propensity of the machine gun employed to
hang fire Hang fire refers to an unexpected delay between the triggering of a firearm and the ignition of the propellant. This failure was common in firearm actions that relied on open primer pans, due to the poor or inconsistent quality of the powder. M ...
due to unreliable ammunition. In December 1914, French aviator Roland Garros asked Saulnier to install his synchronization gear on Garros'
Morane-Saulnier Type L The Morane-Saulnier L, or Morane-Saulnier Type L, or officially MoS-3, was a French parasol wing one or two-seat scout aeroplane of the First World War. The Type L became one of the first successful fighter aircraft when it was fitted with a s ...
parasol monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing con ...
. Unfortunately the gas-operated Hotchkiss machine gun he was provided had an erratic rate of fire and it was impossible to synchronize it with the propeller. As an interim measure, the propeller blades were fitted with metal wedges to protect them from
ricochet A ricochet ( ; ) is a rebound, bounce, or skip off a surface, particularly in the case of a projectile. Most ricochets are caused by accident and while the force of the deflection decelerates the projectile, it can still be energetic and almost ...
s. Garros' modified monoplane first flew in March 1915 and he began combat operations soon after. Garros scored three victories in three weeks before he himself was downed on 18 April and his airplane, along with its synchronization gear and propeller was captured by the Germans. Meanwhile, the synchronization gear (called the ''Stangensteuerung'' in German, for "pushrod control system") devised by the engineers of
Anthony Fokker Anton Herman Gerard "Anthony" Fokker (6 April 1890 – 23 December 1939) was a Dutch aviation pioneer, aviation entrepreneur, aircraft designer, and aircraft manufacturer. He produced fighter aircraft in Germany during the First World War such ...
's firm was the first system to enter service. It would usher in what the British called the " Fokker scourge" and a period of air superiority for the German forces, making the Fokker ''Eindecker'' monoplane a feared name over the Western Front, despite its being an adaptation of an obsolete pre-war French
Morane-Saulnier Aéroplanes Morane-Saulnier was a French aircraft manufacturing company formed in October 1911 by Raymond Saulnier (1881–1964) and the Morane brothers, Léon (1885–1918) and Robert (1886–1968). The company was taken over and diversified ...
racing airplane, with poor flight characteristics and a by now mediocre performance. The first ''Eindecker'' victory came on 1 July 1915, when ''Leutnant''
Kurt Wintgens ''Leutnant'' Kurt Wintgens (1 August 1894 – 25 September 1916) was a German World War I fighter ace. He was the first military fighter pilot to score a victory over an opposing aircraft, while piloting an aircraft armed with a synchronized mac ...
, of ''
Feldflieger Abteilung Feldflieger Abteilung (''FFA'', Field Flying Company) was the title of the pioneering field aviation units of what became the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' (German air service) by October 1916, during World War I. Composition The use of aircraft as a tact ...
6'' on the Western Front, downed a Morane-Saulnier Type L. His was one of five Fokker M.5K/MG prototypes for the ''Eindecker'', and was armed with a synchronized aviation version of the
Parabellum MG14 The Parabellum MG 14 was a 7.92 mm caliber World War I machine gun built by Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken. It was a redesign of the Maschinengewehr 08 machine gun (itself an adaptation of the Maxim gun) system intended for use on airc ...
machine gun. The success of the ''Eindecker'' kicked off a competitive cycle of improvement among the combatants, both sides striving to build ever more capable single-seat fighters. The
Albatros D.I The Albatros D.I was a German fighter aircraft used during World War I. Although its operational career was short, it was the first of the Albatros D types which equipped the bulk of the German and Austrian fighter squadrons ('' Jagdstaffeln'') f ...
and
Sopwith Pup The Sopwith Pup is a British single-seater biplane fighter aircraft built by the Sopwith Aviation Company. It entered service with the Royal Naval Air Service and the Royal Flying Corps in the autumn of 1916. With pleasant flying characteristi ...
of 1916 set the classic pattern followed by fighters for about twenty years. Most were biplanes and only rarely monoplanes or
triplane A triplane is a fixed-wing aircraft equipped with three vertically stacked wing planes. Tailplanes and canard foreplanes are not normally included in this count, although they occasionally are. Design principles The triplane arrangement may ...
s. The strong box structure of the biplane provided a rigid wing that allowed the accurate control essential for dogfighting. They had a single operator, who flew the aircraft and also controlled its armament. They were armed with one or two
Maxim Maxim or Maksim may refer to: Entertainment * ''Maxim'' (magazine), an international men's magazine ** ''Maxim'' (Australia), the Australian edition ** ''Maxim'' (India), the Indian edition *Maxim Radio, ''Maxim'' magazine's radio channel on Sir ...
or
Vickers Vickers was a British engineering company that existed from 1828 until 1999. It was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by Edward Vickers and his father-in-law, and soon became famous for casting church bells. The company went public in 18 ...
machine guns, which were easier to synchronize than other types, firing through the propeller arc. Gun breeches were in front of the pilot, with obvious implications in case of accidents, but jams could be cleared in flight, while aiming was simplified. The use of metal aircraft structures was pioneered before World War I by Breguet but would find its biggest proponent in Anthony Fokker, who used chrome-molybdenum steel tubing for the fuselage structure of all his fighter designs, while the innovative German engineer
Hugo Junkers Hugo Junkers (3 February 1859 – 3 February 1935) was a German aircraft engineer and aircraft designer who pioneered the design of all-metal airplanes and flying wings. His company, Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke AG (Junkers Aircraft and ...
developed two all-metal, single-seat fighter monoplane designs with
cantilever A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is supported at only one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a canti ...
wings: the strictly experimental
Junkers J 2 The Junkers J 2 was the first all-metal aircraft intended as a dedicated military aircraft design, the first all-metal aircraft meant to be a fighter aircraft, and was the direct descendant of the pioneering J 1 all-metal aircraft technology de ...
private-venture aircraft, made with steel, and some forty examples of the Junkers D.I, made with corrugated
duralumin Duralumin (also called duraluminum, duraluminium, duralum, dural(l)ium, or dural) is a trade name for one of the earliest types of age-hardenable aluminium alloys. The term is a combination of '' Dürener'' and ''aluminium''. Its use as a tra ...
, all based on his experience in creating the pioneering
Junkers J 1 The Junkers J 1, nicknamed the ''Blechesel'' ("Tin Donkey" or "Sheet Metal Donkey"), was an experimental monoplane aircraft developed by Junkers & Co. It was the world's first all-metal aircraft. Manufactured early on in the First World War, ...
all-metal airframe technology demonstration aircraft of late 1915. While Fokker would pursue steel tube fuselages with wooden wings until the late 1930s, and Junkers would focus on corrugated sheet metal, Dornier was the first to build a fighter (The
Dornier-Zeppelin D.I The Zeppelin D.I, or Zeppelin-Lindau D.I or Zeppelin D.I (Do), as named in German documents, also sometimes referred to postwar as the Dornier D.I or Dornier-Zeppelin D.I, for the designer,Grosz, 1998, p.12 was a single-seat all-metal stressed s ...
) made with pre-stressed sheet aluminum and having cantilevered wings, a form that would replace all others in the 1930s. As collective combat experience grew, the more successful pilots such as
Oswald Boelcke Oswald Boelcke PlM (; 19 May 1891 – 28 October 1916) was a World War I German professional soldier and pioneering flying ace credited with 40 aerial victories. Boelcke is honored as the father of the German fighter air force, and of air ...
,
Max Immelmann Max Immelmann (21 September 1890 – 18 June 1916) '' PLM'' was the first German World War I flying ace.Shores, 1983, p. 10. He was a pioneer in fighter aviation and is often mistakenly credited with the first aerial victory using a synchr ...
, and
Edward Mannock Edward Corringham "Mick" Mannock (24 May 1887 – 26 July 1918) was a British flying ace in the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force during the First World War. Mannock was a pioneer of fighter aircraft tactics in aerial warfare. At the time ...
developed innovative tactical formations and maneuvers to enhance their air units' combat effectiveness. Allied and – before 1918 – German pilots of World War I were not equipped with
parachute A parachute is a device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag or, in a ram-air parachute, aerodynamic lift. A major application is to support people, for recreation or as a safety device for aviators, who ...
s, so in-flight fires or structural failures were often fatal. Parachutes were well-developed by 1918 having previously been used by balloonists, and were adopted by the German flying services during the course of that year. The well known and feared
Manfred von Richthofen Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen (; 2 May 1892 – 21 April 1918), known in English as Baron von Richthofen or the Red Baron, was a fighter pilot with the German Air Force during World War I. He is considered the ace-of-aces of ...
, the "Red Baron", was wearing one when he was killed, but the allied command continued to oppose their use on various grounds. In April 1917, during a brief period of German aerial supremacy a British pilot's average life expectancy was calculated to average 93 flying hours, or about three weeks of active service. More than 50,000 airmen from both sides died during the war.


Inter-war period (1919–38)

Fighter development stagnated between the wars, especially in the United States and the United Kingdom, where budgets were small. In France, Italy and Russia, where large budgets continued to allow major development, both monoplanes and all metal structures were common. By the end of the 1920s, however, those countries overspent themselves and were overtaken in the 1930s by those powers that hadn't been spending heavily, namely the British, the Americans and the Germans. Given limited budgets, air forces were conservative in aircraft design, and biplanes remained popular with pilots for their agility, and remained in service long after they ceased to be competitive. Designs such as the
Gloster Gladiator The Gloster Gladiator is a British biplane fighter. It was used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) (as the Sea Gladiator variant) and was exported to a number of other air forces during the late 1930s. Developed private ...
,
Fiat CR.42 Falco The Fiat CR.42 ''Falco'' ("Falcon", plural: ''Falchi'') is a single-seat sesquiplane fighter developed and produced by Italian aircraft manufacturer Fiat Aviazione. It served primarily in the Italian in the 1930s and during the Second World Wa ...
, and
Polikarpov I-15 The Polikarpov I-15 (russian: И-15) was a Soviet biplane fighter aircraft of the 1930s. Nicknamed ''Chaika'' (''russian: Чайка'', "Seagull") because of its gulled upper wings,Gunston 1995, p. 299.Green and Swanborough 1979, p. 10. it was o ...
were common even in the late 1930s, and many were still in service as late as 1942. Up until the mid-1930s, the majority of fighters in the US, the UK, Italy and Russia remained fabric-covered biplanes. Fighter armament eventually began to be mounted inside the wings, outside the arc of the propeller, though most designs retained two synchronized machine guns directly ahead of the pilot, where they were more accurate (that being the strongest part of the structure, reducing the vibration to which the guns were subjected). Shooting with this traditional arrangement was also easier because the guns shot directly ahead in the direction of the aircraft's flight, up to the limit of the guns range; unlike wing-mounted guns which to be effective required to be harmonised, that is, preset to shoot at an angle by ground crews so that their bullets would converge on a target area a set distance ahead of the fighter. Rifle-caliber calibre guns remained the norm, with larger weapons either being too heavy and cumbersome or deemed unnecessary against such lightly built aircraft. It was not considered unreasonable to use World War I-style armament to counter enemy fighters as there was insufficient air-to-air combat during most of the period to disprove this notion. The
rotary engine The rotary engine is an early type of internal combustion engine, usually designed with an odd number of cylinders per row in a radial configuration. The engine's crankshaft remained stationary in operation, while the entire crankcase and i ...
, popular during World War I, quickly disappeared, its development having reached the point where rotational forces prevented more fuel and air from being delivered to the cylinders, which limited horsepower. They were replaced chiefly by the stationary
radial engine The radial engine is a reciprocating type internal combustion engine configuration in which the cylinders "radiate" outward from a central crankcase like the spokes of a wheel. It resembles a stylized star when viewed from the front, and is ca ...
though major advances led to inline engines gaining ground with several exceptional engines—including the V-12
Curtiss D-12 The Curtiss D-12, sometimes identified with the military designation Curtiss V-1150, was an aircraft engine of 18.8 liter displacement. It was a water-cooled V12, producing 443 hp (330 kW) and weighing 693 lb (314 kg). It wa ...
.
Aircraft engine An aircraft engine, often referred to as an aero engine, is the power component of an aircraft propulsion system. Most aircraft engines are either piston engines or gas turbines, although a few have been rocket powered and in recent years many ...
s increased in power several-fold over the period, going from a typical in the
Fokker D.VII The Fokker D.VII was a German World War I fighter aircraft designed by Reinhold Platz of the Fokker-Flugzeugwerke. Germany produced around 3,300 D.VII aircraft in the second half of 1918. In service with the ''Luftstreitkräfte'', the D.VII qui ...
of 1918 to in the Curtiss P-36 of 1936. The debate between the sleek in-line engines versus the more reliable radial models continued, with naval air forces preferring the radial engines, and land-based forces often choosing inlines. Radial designs did not require a separate (and vulnerable) radiator, but had increased drag. Inline engines often had a better power-to-weight ratio. Some air forces experimented with "
heavy fighter A heavy fighter is a historic category of fighter aircraft produced in the 1930s and 1940s, designed to carry heavier weapons, and/or operate at longer ranges than light fighter aircraft. To achieve performance, most heavy fighters were twin-eng ...
s" (called "destroyers" by the Germans). These were larger, usually twin-engined aircraft, sometimes adaptations of
light Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 tera ...
or
medium bomber A medium bomber is a military bomber Fixed-wing aircraft, aircraft designed to operate with medium-sized Aerial bomb, bombloads over medium Range (aeronautics), range distances; the name serves to distinguish this type from larger heavy bombe ...
types. Such designs typically had greater internal fuel capacity (thus longer range) and heavier armament than their single-engine counterparts. In combat, they proved vulnerable to more agile single-engine fighters. The primary driver of fighter innovation, right up to the period of rapid re-armament in the late 1930s, were not military budgets, but civilian aircraft racing. Aircraft designed for these races introduced innovations like streamlining and more powerful engines that would find their way into the fighters of World War II. The most significant of these was the
Schneider Trophy The Coupe d'Aviation Maritime Jacques Schneider, also known as the Schneider Trophy, Schneider Prize or (incorrectly) the Schneider Cup is a trophy that was awarded annually (and later, biennially) to the winner of a race for seaplanes and flying ...
races, where competition grew so fierce, only national governments could afford to enter. At the very end of the inter-war period in Europe came the
Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...
. This was just the opportunity the German ''
Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...
'', Italian ''
Regia Aeronautica The Italian Royal Air Force (''Regia Aeronautica Italiana'') was the name of the air force of the Kingdom of Italy. It was established as a service independent of the Royal Italian Army from 1923 until 1946. In 1946, the monarchy was abolis ...
'', and the Soviet Union's
Red Air Force The Soviet Air Forces ( rus, Военно-воздушные силы, r=Voyenno-vozdushnyye sily, VVS; literally "Military Air Forces") were one of the air forces of the Soviet Union. The other was the Soviet Air Defence Forces. The Air Forces ...
needed to test their latest aircraft. Each party sent numerous aircraft types to support their sides in the conflict. In the
dogfight A dogfight, or dog fight, is an aerial battle between fighter aircraft conducted at close range. Dogfighting first occurred in Mexico in 1913, shortly after the invention of the airplane. Until at least 1992, it was a component in every majo ...
s over Spain, the latest
Messerschmitt Bf 109 The Messerschmitt Bf 109 is a German World War II fighter aircraft that was, along with the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, the backbone of the Luftwaffe's fighter force. The Bf 109 first saw operational service in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War an ...
fighters did well, as did the Soviet
Polikarpov I-16 The Polikarpov I-16 (russian: Поликарпов И-16) is a Soviet single-engine single-seat fighter aircraft of revolutionary design; it was the world's first low-wing cantilever monoplane fighter with retractable landing gear to attain ...
. The later German design was earlier in its design cycle, and had more room for development and the lessons learned led to greatly improved models in World War II. The Russians failed to keep up and despite newer models coming into service, I-16s remaining the most common Soviet front-line fighter into 1942 despite being outclassed by the improved Bf 109s in World War II. For their part, the Italians developed several monoplanes such as the Fiat G.50 Freccia, but being short on funds, were forced to continue operating obsolete
Fiat CR.42 Falco The Fiat CR.42 ''Falco'' ("Falcon", plural: ''Falchi'') is a single-seat sesquiplane fighter developed and produced by Italian aircraft manufacturer Fiat Aviazione. It served primarily in the Italian in the 1930s and during the Second World Wa ...
biplanes. From the early 1930s the Japanese were at war against both the Chinese Nationalists and the Russians in China, and used the experience to improve both training and aircraft, replacing biplanes with modern cantilever monoplanes and creating a cadre of exceptional pilots. In the United Kingdom, at the behest of
Neville Chamberlain Arthur Neville Chamberlain (; 18 March 18699 November 1940) was a British politician of the Conservative Party who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. He is best known for his foreign policy of appeasemen ...
, (more famous for his 'peace in our time' speech) the entire British aviation industry was retooled, allowing it to change quickly from fabric covered metal framed biplanes to cantilever stressed skin monoplanes in time for the war with Germany, a process that France attempted to emulate, but too late to counter the German invasion. The period of improving the same biplane design over and over was now coming to an end, and the
Hawker Hurricane The Hawker Hurricane is a British single-seat fighter aircraft of the 1930s–40s which was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd. for service with the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was overshadowed in the public consciousness b ...
and
Supermarine Spitfire The Supermarine Spitfire is a British single-seat fighter aircraft used by the Royal Air Force and other Allied countries before, during, and after World War II. Many variants of the Spitfire were built, from the Mk 1 to the Rolls-Royce Grif ...
started to supplant the
Gloster Gladiator The Gloster Gladiator is a British biplane fighter. It was used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) (as the Sea Gladiator variant) and was exported to a number of other air forces during the late 1930s. Developed private ...
and
Hawker Fury The Hawker Fury is a British biplane fighter aircraft used by the Royal Air Force in the 1930s. It was a fast, agile aircraft, and the first interceptor in RAF service capable of speed higher than 200 mph (321 kmh). It was the fighter co ...
biplanes but many biplanes remained in front-line service well past the start of World War II. While not a combatant in Spain, they too absorbed many of the lessons in time to use them. The Spanish Civil War also provided an opportunity for updating fighter tactics. One of the innovations was the development of the "
finger-four The finger-four formation (also known as the "four finger formation" and the "Fingertip Formation") is a flight formation used by fighter aircraft. It consists of four aircraft, and four of these formations can be combined into a squadron format ...
" formation by the German pilot
Werner Mölders Werner Mölders (18 March 1913 – 22 November 1941) was a World War II German Luftwaffe pilot, wing commander, and the leading German fighter ace in the Spanish Civil War. He became the first pilot in aviation history to shoot down 10 ...
. Each fighter
squadron Squadron may refer to: * Squadron (army), a military unit of cavalry, tanks, or equivalent subdivided into troops or tank companies * Squadron (aviation), a military unit that consists of three or four flights with a total of 12 to 24 aircraft, ...
(German: ''Staffel'') was divided into several flights (''Schwärme'') of four aircraft. Each ''Schwarm'' was divided into two ''Rotten'', which was a pair of aircraft. Each ''Rotte'' was composed of a leader and a wingman. This flexible formation allowed the pilots to maintain greater situational awareness, and the two ''Rotten'' could split up at any time and attack on their own. The finger-four would be widely adopted as the fundamental tactical formation during World War Two, including by the British and later the Americans.


World War II

World War II featured fighter combat on a larger scale than any other conflict to date. German Field Marshal
Erwin Rommel Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel () (15 November 1891 – 14 October 1944) was a German field marshal during World War II. Popularly known as the Desert Fox (, ), he served in the ''Wehrmacht'' (armed forces) of Nazi Germany, as well as servi ...
noted the effect of airpower: "Anyone who has to fight, even with the most modern weapons, against an enemy in complete command of the air, fights like a savage..." Throughout the war, fighters performed their conventional role in establishing
air superiority Aerial supremacy (also air superiority) is the degree to which a side in a conflict holds control of air power over opposing forces. There are levels of control of the air in aerial warfare. Control of the air is the aerial equivalent of c ...
through combat with other fighters and through bomber interception, and also often performed roles such as tactical air support and
reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities. Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops (skirmisher ...
. Fighter design varied widely among combatants. The Japanese and Italians favored lightly armed and armored but highly maneuverable designs such as the Japanese
Nakajima Ki-27 The was the main fighter aircraft used by the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service up until 1940. Its Allied nickname was "Nate", although it was called "Abdul" in the "China Burma India" (CBI) theater by many post war sources; Allied Intelligen ...
,
Nakajima Ki-43 The Nakajima Ki-43 ''Hayabusa'' (, "Peregrine falcon", "Army Type 1 Fighter" ) is a single-engine land-based tactical fighter used by the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service in World War II. The Allied reporting name was "Oscar", but it was o ...
and
Mitsubishi A6M Zero The Mitsubishi A6M "Zero" is a long-range carrier-based fighter aircraft formerly manufactured by Mitsubishi Aircraft Company, a part of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and was operated by the Imperial Japanese Navy from 1940 to 1945. The A6M w ...
and the Italian Fiat G.50 Freccia and
Macchi MC.200 The Macchi C.200 Saetta (Italian: "Lightning"), or MC.200, was a fighter aircraft developed and manufactured by Aeronautica Macchi in Italy. Various versions were flown by the ''Regia Aeronautica'' (Italian Air Force) who used the type throughou ...
. In contrast, designers in the United Kingdom, Germany, the Soviet Union, and the United States believed that the increased speed of fighter aircraft would create ''g''-forces unbearable to pilots who attempted maneuvering dogfights typical of the First World War, and their fighters were instead optimized for speed and firepower. In practice, while light, highly maneuverable aircraft did possess some advantages in fighter-versus-fighter combat, those could usually be overcome by sound tactical doctrine, and the design approach of the Italians and Japanese made their fighters ill-suited as interceptors or attack aircraft.


European theater

During the
invasion of Poland The invasion of Poland (1 September – 6 October 1939) was a joint attack on the Republic of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union which marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week aft ...
and the
Battle of France The Battle of France (french: bataille de France) (10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Western Campaign ('), the French Campaign (german: Frankreichfeldzug, ) and the Fall of France, was the Nazi Germany, German invasion of French Third Rep ...
, Luftwaffe fighters—primarily the
Messerschmitt Bf 109 The Messerschmitt Bf 109 is a German World War II fighter aircraft that was, along with the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, the backbone of the Luftwaffe's fighter force. The Bf 109 first saw operational service in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War an ...
—held air superiority, and the Luftwaffe played a major role in German victories in these campaigns. During the
Battle of Britain The Battle of Britain, also known as the Air Battle for England (german: die Luftschlacht um England), was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defende ...
, however, British
Hurricanes A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depend ...
and
Spitfires The Supermarine Spitfire is a British single-seat fighter aircraft used by the Royal Air Force and other Allied countries before, during, and after World War II. Many variants of the Spitfire were built, from the Mk 1 to the Rolls-Royce Grif ...
proved roughly equal to Luftwaffe fighters. Additionally Britain's radar-based
Dowding system The Dowding system was the world's first wide-area ground-controlled interception network, controlling the airspace across the United Kingdom from northern Scotland to the southern coast of England. It used a widespread dedicated land-line telep ...
directing fighters onto German attacks and the advantages of fighting above Britain's home territory allowed the RAF to deny Germany air superiority, saving the UK from possible German invasion and dealing the Axis a major defeat early in the Second World War. On the Eastern Front, Soviet fighter forces were overwhelmed during the opening phases of
Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...
. This was a result of the tactical surprise at the outset of the campaign, the leadership vacuum within the Soviet military left by the
Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...
, and the general inferiority of Soviet designs at the time, such as the obsolescent
Polikarpov I-15 The Polikarpov I-15 (russian: И-15) was a Soviet biplane fighter aircraft of the 1930s. Nicknamed ''Chaika'' (''russian: Чайка'', "Seagull") because of its gulled upper wings,Gunston 1995, p. 299.Green and Swanborough 1979, p. 10. it was o ...
biplane and the I-16. More modern Soviet designs, including the
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3 The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3 (russian: Микоян и Гуревич МиГ-3) was a Soviet fighter-interceptor used during World War II. It was a development of the MiG-1 by the OKO (opytno-konstruktorskij otdel — Experimental Design Departme ...
,
LaGG-3 The Lavochkin-Gorbunov-Gudkov LaGG-3 (Лавочкин-Горбунов-Гудков ЛаГГ-3) was a Soviet fighter aircraft of World War II. It was a refinement of the earlier LaGG-1 and was one of the most modern aircraft available to the Sov ...
and Yakolev Yak-1, had not yet arrived in numbers and in any case were still inferior to the
Messerschmitt Bf 109 The Messerschmitt Bf 109 is a German World War II fighter aircraft that was, along with the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, the backbone of the Luftwaffe's fighter force. The Bf 109 first saw operational service in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War an ...
. As a result, during the early months of these campaigns,
Axis An axis (plural ''axes'') is an imaginary line around which an object rotates or is symmetrical. Axis may also refer to: Mathematics * Axis of rotation: see rotation around a fixed axis * Axis (mathematics), a designator for a Cartesian-coordinat ...
air forces destroyed large numbers of Red Air Force aircraft on the ground and in one-sided dogfights. In the later stages on the Eastern Front, Soviet training and leadership improved, as did their equipment. By 1942 Soviet designs such as the
Yakovlev Yak-9 The Yakovlev Yak-9 (russian: Яковлев Як-9) is a single-engine, single-seat multipurpose fighter aircraft used by the Soviet Union and its allies during World War II and the early Cold War. It was a development of the robust and successf ...
and Lavochkin La-5 had performance comparable to the German Bf 109 and Focke-Wulf Fw 190. Also, significant numbers of British, and later U.S., fighter aircraft were supplied to aid the Soviet war effort as part of
Lend-Lease Lend-Lease, formally the Lend-Lease Act and introduced as An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States (), was a policy under which the United States supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and other Allied nations with food, oil, ...
, with the
Bell P-39 Airacobra The Bell P-39 Airacobra is a fighter produced by Bell Aircraft for the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. It was one of the principal American fighters in service when the United States entered combat. The P-39 was used by the ...
proving particularly effective in the lower-altitude combat typical of the Eastern Front. The Soviets were also helped indirectly by the American and British bombing campaigns, which forced the Luftwaffe to shift many of its fighters away from the Eastern Front in defense against these raids. The Soviets increasingly were able to challenge the Luftwaffe, and while the Luftwaffe maintained a qualitative edge over the Red Air Force for much of the war, the increasing numbers and efficacy of the Soviet Air Force were critical to the Red Army's efforts at turning back and eventually annihilating the
Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previous ...
. Meanwhile, air combat on the Western Front had a much different character. Much of this combat focused on the
strategic bombing Strategic bombing is a military strategy used in total war with the goal of defeating the enemy by destroying its morale, its economic ability to produce and transport materiel to the theatres of military operations, or both. It is a systematica ...
campaigns of the
RAF The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
and the
USAAF The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...
against German industry intended to wear down the Luftwaffe. Axis fighter aircraft focused on defending against Allied bombers while Allied fighters' main role was as bomber escorts. The RAF raided German cities at night, and both sides developed radar-equipped
night fighter A night fighter (also known as all-weather fighter or all-weather interceptor for a period of time after the Second World War) is a fighter aircraft adapted for use at night or in other times of bad visibility. Night fighters began to be used i ...
s for these battles. The Americans, in contrast, flew daylight bombing raids into Germany delivering the
Combined Bomber Offensive The Combined Bomber Offensive (CBO) was an Allied offensive of strategic bombing during World War II in Europe. The primary portion of the CBO was directed against Luftwaffe targets which was the highest priority from June 1943 to 1 April 1944. ...
. Unescorted
Consolidated B-24 Liberator The Consolidated B-24 Liberator is an American heavy bomber, designed by Consolidated Aircraft of San Diego, California. It was known within the company as the Model 32, and some initial production aircraft were laid down as export models des ...
s and
Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is a four-engined heavy bomber developed in the 1930s for the United States Army Air Corps (USAAC). Relatively fast and high-flying for a bomber of its era, the B-17 was used primarily in the European Theater ...
bombers, however, proved unable to fend off German interceptors (primarily Bf 109s and Fw 190s). With the later arrival of long range fighters, particularly the
North American P-51 Mustang The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang is an American long-range, single-seat fighter aircraft, fighter and fighter-bomber used during World War II and the Korean War, among other conflicts. The Mustang was designed in April 1940 by a team ...
, American fighters were able to escort far into Germany on daylight raids and by ranging ahead attrited the Luftwaffe to establish control of the skies over Western Europe. By the time of
Operation Overlord Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allies of World War II, Allied operation that launched the successful invasion of German-occupied Western Front (World War II), Western Europe during World War II. The operat ...
in June 1944, the Allies had gained near complete air superiority over the Western Front. This cleared the way both for intensified strategic bombing of German cities and industries, and for the
tactical bombing Tactical bombing is aerial bombing aimed at targets of immediate military value, such as combatants, military installations, or military equipment. This is in contrast to strategic bombing, or attacking enemy cities and factories to cripple fu ...
of battlefield targets. With the Luftwaffe largely cleared from the skies, Allied fighters increasingly served as ground attack aircraft. Allied fighters, by gaining air superiority over the European battlefield, played a crucial role in the eventual defeat of the Axis, which ''Reichmarshal''
Hermann Göring Hermann Wilhelm Göring (or Goering; ; 12 January 1893 – 15 October 1946) was a German politician, military leader and convicted war criminal. He was one of the most powerful figures in the Nazi Party, which ruled Germany from 1933 to 1 ...
, commander of the German ''
Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...
'' summed up when he said: "When I saw
Mustangs The mustang is a free-roaming horse of the Western United States, descended from horses brought to the Americas by the Spanish. Mustangs are often referred to as wild horses, but because they are descended from once-domesticated animals, they ...
over Berlin, I knew the jig was up."


Pacific theater

Major air combat during the
war in the Pacific The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vast ...
began with the entry of the Western Allies following Japan's attack against Pearl Harbor. The Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service primarily operated the
Mitsubishi A6M Zero The Mitsubishi A6M "Zero" is a long-range carrier-based fighter aircraft formerly manufactured by Mitsubishi Aircraft Company, a part of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and was operated by the Imperial Japanese Navy from 1940 to 1945. The A6M w ...
, and the
Imperial Japanese Army Air Service The Imperial Japanese Army Air Service (IJAAS) or Imperial Japanese Army Air Force (IJAAF; ja, 大日本帝國陸軍航空部隊, Dainippon Teikoku Rikugun Kōkūbutai, lit=Greater Japan Empire Army Air Corps) was the aviation force of the Im ...
flew the
Nakajima Ki-27 The was the main fighter aircraft used by the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service up until 1940. Its Allied nickname was "Nate", although it was called "Abdul" in the "China Burma India" (CBI) theater by many post war sources; Allied Intelligen ...
and the
Nakajima Ki-43 The Nakajima Ki-43 ''Hayabusa'' (, "Peregrine falcon", "Army Type 1 Fighter" ) is a single-engine land-based tactical fighter used by the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service in World War II. The Allied reporting name was "Oscar", but it was o ...
, initially enjoying great success, as these fighters generally had better range, maneuverability, speed and climb rates than their Allied counterparts.Eden p. 370 Additionally, Japanese pilots were well trained and many were combat veterans from Japan's campaigns in China. They quickly gained air superiority over the Allies, who at this stage of the war were often disorganized, under-trained and poorly equipped, and Japanese air power contributed significantly to their successes in
the Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...
, Malaysia and Singapore,
the Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch Empire, Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised Factory (trading post), trading posts o ...
and
Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
. By mid-1942, the Allies began to regroup and while some Allied aircraft such as the
Brewster Buffalo The Brewster F2A Buffalo is an American fighter aircraft which saw service early in World War II. Designed and built by the Brewster Aeronautical Corporation, it was one of the first U.S. monoplanes with an arrestor hook and other modifications ...
and the
P-39 Airacobra The Bell P-39 Airacobra is a fighter produced by Bell Aircraft for the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. It was one of the principal American fighters in service when the United States entered combat. The P-39 was used by the ...
were hopelessly outclassed by fighters like Japan's
Mitsubishi A6M Zero The Mitsubishi A6M "Zero" is a long-range carrier-based fighter aircraft formerly manufactured by Mitsubishi Aircraft Company, a part of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and was operated by the Imperial Japanese Navy from 1940 to 1945. The A6M w ...
, others such as the Army's
Curtiss P-40 Warhawk The Curtiss P-40 Warhawk is an American single-engined, single-seat, all-metal fighter and ground-attack aircraft that first flew in 1938. The P-40 design was a modification of the previous Curtiss P-36 Hawk which reduced development time an ...
and the Navy's
Grumman F4F Wildcat The Grumman F4F Wildcat is an American carrier-based fighter aircraft that entered service in 1940 with the United States Navy, and the British Royal Navy where it was initially known as the Martlet. First used by the British in the North Atlant ...
possessed attributes such as superior firepower, ruggedness and dive speed, and the Allies soon developed tactics (such as the Thach Weave) to take advantage of these strengths. These changes soon paid dividends, as the Allied ability to deny Japan air superiority was critical to their victories at
Coral Sea The Coral Sea () is a marginal sea of the South Pacific off the northeast coast of Australia, and classified as an interim Australian bioregion. The Coral Sea extends down the Australian northeast coast. Most of it is protected by the Fre ...
, Midway,
Guadalcanal Guadalcanal (; indigenous name: ''Isatabu'') is the principal island in Guadalcanal Province of Solomon Islands, located in the south-western Pacific, northeast of Australia. It is the largest island in the Solomon Islands by area, and the seco ...
and
New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea). It is a simplified version of ...
. In China, the
Flying Tigers The First American Volunteer Group (AVG) of the Republic of China Air Force, nicknamed the Flying Tigers, was formed to help oppose the Japanese invasion of China. Operating in 1941–1942, it was composed of pilots from the United States Ar ...
also used the same tactics with some success, although they were unable to stem the tide of Japanese advances there. By 1943, the Allies began to gain the upper hand in the Pacific Campaign's air campaigns. Several factors contributed to this shift. First, the
Lockheed P-38 Lightning The Lockheed P-38 Lightning is an American single-seat, twin piston-engined fighter aircraft that was used during World War II. Developed for the United States Army Air Corps by the Lockheed Corporation, the P-38 incorporated a distinctive twi ...
and second-generation Allied fighters such as the Grumman F6 Hellcat and later the Vought F4 Corsair, the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt and the
North American P-51 Mustang The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang is an American long-range, single-seat fighter aircraft, fighter and fighter-bomber used during World War II and the Korean War, among other conflicts. The Mustang was designed in April 1940 by a team ...
, began arriving in numbers. These fighters outperformed Japanese fighters in all respects except maneuverability. Other problems with Japan's fighter aircraft also became apparent as the war progressed, such as their lack of armor and light armament, which had been typical of all pre-war fighters worldwide, but the problem was particularly difficult to rectify on the Japanese designs. This made them inadequate as either bomber-interceptors or ground-attack aircraft, roles Allied fighters were still able to fill. Most importantly, Japan's training program failed to provide enough well-trained pilots to replace losses. In contrast, the Allies improved both the quantity and quality of pilots graduating from their training programs. By mid-1944, Allied fighters had gained air superiority throughout the theater, which would not be contested again during the war. The extent of Allied quantitative and qualitative superiority by this point in the war was demonstrated during the
Battle of the Philippine Sea The Battle of the Philippine Sea (June 19–20, 1944) was a major naval battle of World War II that eliminated the Imperial Japanese Navy's ability to conduct large-scale carrier actions. It took place during the United States' amphibious invas ...
, a lopsided Allied victory in which Japanese fliers were shot down in such numbers and with such ease that American fighter pilots likened it to a great 'turkey shoot'. Late in the war, Japan began to produce new fighters such as the
Nakajima Ki-84 The is a single-seat fighter flown by the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service in the last two years of World War II. The Allied reporting name was "Frank"; the Japanese Army designation was . The Ki-84 is generally considered the best Japanese ...
and the
Kawanishi N1K The Kawanishi N1K ''Kyōfū'' (, "Strong Wind", Allied reporting name "Rex") is an Imperial Japanese Navy floatplane fighter. The Kawanishi N1K-J ''Shiden'' (, "Violet Lightning") was an Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service land-based version o ...
to replace the Zero, but only in small numbers, and by then Japan lacked the trained pilots or sufficient fuel to mount an effective challenge to Allied attacks. During the closing stages of the war, Japan's fighter arm could not seriously challenge raids over Japan by American
Boeing B-29 Superfortress The Boeing B-29 Superfortress is an American four-engined propeller-driven heavy bomber, designed by Boeing and flown primarily by the United States during World War II and the Korean War. Named in allusion to its predecessor, the B-17 Fl ...
es, and was largely reduced to
Kamikaze , officially , were a part of the Japanese Special Attack Units of military aviators who flew suicide attacks for the Empire of Japan against Allied naval vessels in the closing stages of the Pacific campaign of World War II, intending to d ...
attacks.


Technological innovations

Fighter technology advanced rapidly during the Second World War.
Piston-engine A reciprocating engine, also often known as a piston engine, is typically a heat engine that uses one or more reciprocating pistons to convert high temperature and high pressure into a rotating motion. This article describes the common featu ...
s, which powered the vast majority of World War II fighters, grew more powerful: at the beginning of the war fighters typically had engines producing between and , while by the end of the war many could produce over . For example, the
Spitfire The Supermarine Spitfire is a British single-seat fighter aircraft used by the Royal Air Force and other Allied countries before, during, and after World War II. Many variants of the Spitfire were built, from the Mk 1 to the Rolls-Royce Griff ...
, one of the few fighters in continuous production throughout the war, was in 1939 powered by a Merlin II, while
variants Variant may refer to: In arts and entertainment * ''Variant'' (magazine), a former British cultural magazine * Variant cover, an issue of comic books with varying cover art * ''Variant'' (novel), a novel by Robison Wells * " The Variant", 2021 e ...
produced in 1945 were equipped with the Rolls-Royce Griffon 61. Nevertheless, these fighters could only achieve modest increases in top speed due to problems of
compressibility In thermodynamics and fluid mechanics, the compressibility (also known as the coefficient of compressibility or, if the temperature is held constant, the isothermal compressibility) is a measure of the instantaneous relative volume change of a f ...
created as aircraft and their propellers approached the
sound barrier The sound barrier or sonic barrier is the large increase in aerodynamic drag and other undesirable effects experienced by an aircraft or other object when it approaches the speed of sound. When aircraft first approached the speed of sound, th ...
, and it was apparent that propeller-driven aircraft were approaching the limits of their performance. German jet and
rocket A rocket (from it, rocchetto, , bobbin/spool) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely fr ...
-powered fighters entered combat in 1944, too late to impact the war's outcome. The same year the Allies' only operational jet fighter, the
Gloster Meteor The Gloster Meteor was the first British jet fighter and the Allies of World War II, Allies' only jet aircraft to engage in combat operations during the Second World War. The Meteor's development was heavily reliant on its ground-breaking turb ...
, also entered service. World War II fighters also increasingly featured
monocoque Monocoque ( ), also called structural skin, is a structural system in which loads are supported by an object's external skin, in a manner similar to an egg shell. The word ''monocoque'' is a French term for "single shell". First used for boats, ...
construction, which improved their aerodynamic efficiency while adding structural strength.
Laminar flow In fluid dynamics, laminar flow is characterized by fluid particles following smooth paths in layers, with each layer moving smoothly past the adjacent layers with little or no mixing. At low velocities, the fluid tends to flow without lateral mi ...
wings, which improved high speed performance, also came into use on fighters such as the P-51 Mustang, while the
Messerschmitt Me 262 The Messerschmitt Me 262, nicknamed ''Schwalbe'' (German: "Swallow") in fighter versions, or ''Sturmvogel'' (German: "Storm Bird") in fighter-bomber versions, is a fighter aircraft and fighter-bomber that was designed and produced by the Germa ...
and the
Messerschmitt Me 163 The Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet is a rocket-powered interceptor aircraft primarily designed and produced by the German aircraft manufacturer Messerschmitt. It is the only operational rocket-powered fighter aircraft in history as well as ...
featured
swept wing A swept wing is a wing that angles either backward or occasionally forward from its root rather than in a straight sideways direction. Swept wings have been flown since the pioneer days of aviation. Wing sweep at high speeds was first investigate ...
s that dramatically reduced drag at high subsonic speeds.
Armament A weapon, arm or armament is any implement or device that can be used to deter, threaten, inflict physical damage, harm, or kill. Weapons are used to increase the efficacy and efficiency of activities such as hunting, crime, law enforcement, s ...
also advanced during the war. The rifle-caliber machine guns that were common on prewar fighters could not easily down the more rugged warplanes of the era. Air forces began to replace or supplement them with cannons, which fired explosive shells that could blast a hole in an enemy aircraft – rather than relying on
kinetic energy In physics, the kinetic energy of an object is the energy that it possesses due to its motion. It is defined as the work needed to accelerate a body of a given mass from rest to its stated velocity. Having gained this energy during its accele ...
from a solid bullet striking a critical component of the aircraft, such as a fuel line or control cable, or the pilot. Cannons could bring down even
heavy bomber Heavy bombers are bomber aircraft capable of delivering the largest payload of air-to-ground weaponry (usually bombs) and longest range (takeoff to landing) of their era. Archetypal heavy bombers have therefore usually been among the larges ...
s with just a few hits, but their slower rate of fire made it difficult to hit fast-moving fighters in a dogfight. Eventually, most fighters mounted cannons, sometimes in combination with machine guns. The British epitomized this shift. Their standard early war fighters mounted eight caliber machine guns, but by mid-war they often featured a combination of machine guns and cannons, and late in the war often only cannons. The Americans, in contrast, had problems producing a cannon design, so instead placed multiple
heavy machine gun A heavy machine gun (HMG) is significantly larger than light machine gun, light, medium machine gun, medium or general-purpose machine guns. HMGs are typically too heavy to be man-portable (carried by one person) and require weapon mount, mountin ...
s on their fighters. Fighters were also increasingly fitted with bomb racks and air-to-surface ordnance such as bombs or rockets beneath their wings, and pressed into
close air support In military tactics, close air support (CAS) is defined as air action such as air strikes by fixed or rotary-winged aircraft against hostile targets near friendly forces and require detailed integration of each air mission with fire and moveme ...
roles as fighter-bombers. Although they carried less ordnance than
light Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 tera ...
and
medium Medium may refer to: Science and technology Aviation *Medium bomber, a class of war plane *Tecma Medium, a French hang glider design Communication * Media (communication), tools used to store and deliver information or data * Medium of ...
bombers, and generally had a shorter range, they were cheaper to produce and maintain and their maneuverability made it easier for them to hit moving targets such as motorized vehicles. Moreover, if they encountered enemy fighters, their ordnance (which reduced
lift Lift or LIFT may refer to: Physical devices * Elevator, or lift, a device used for raising and lowering people or goods ** Paternoster lift, a type of lift using a continuous chain of cars which do not stop ** Patient lift, or Hoyer lift, mobil ...
and increased drag and therefore decreased performance) could be jettisoned and they could engage enemy fighters, which eliminated the need for fighter escorts that bombers required. Heavily armed fighters such as Germany's Focke-Wulf Fw 190, Britain's
Hawker Typhoon The Hawker Typhoon is a British single-seat fighter-bomber, produced by Hawker Aircraft. It was intended to be a medium-high altitude interceptor, as a replacement for the Hawker Hurricane, but several design problems were encountered and i ...
and
Hawker Tempest The Hawker Tempest is a British fighter aircraft that was primarily used by the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the Second World War. The Tempest, originally known as the ''Typhoon II'', was an improved derivative of the Hawker Typhoon, intended to ...
, and America's
Curtiss P-40 The Curtiss P-40 Warhawk is an American single-engined, single-seat, all-metal fighter and ground-attack aircraft that first flew in 1938. The P-40 design was a modification of the previous Curtiss P-36 Hawk which reduced development time and ...
, F4 Corsair, P-47 Thunderbolt and P-38 Lightning all excelled as fighter-bombers, and since the Second World War ground attack has become an important secondary capability of many fighters. World War II also saw the first use of airborne
radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, w ...
on fighters. The primary purpose of these radars was to help
night fighter A night fighter (also known as all-weather fighter or all-weather interceptor for a period of time after the Second World War) is a fighter aircraft adapted for use at night or in other times of bad visibility. Night fighters began to be used i ...
s locate enemy bombers and fighters. Because of the bulkiness of these radar sets, they could not be carried on conventional single-engined fighters and instead were typically retrofitted to larger
heavy fighter A heavy fighter is a historic category of fighter aircraft produced in the 1930s and 1940s, designed to carry heavier weapons, and/or operate at longer ranges than light fighter aircraft. To achieve performance, most heavy fighters were twin-eng ...
s or
light bomber A light bomber is a relatively small and fast type of military bomber aircraft that was primarily employed before the 1950s. Such aircraft would typically not carry more than one ton of ordnance. The earliest light bombers were intended to dro ...
s such as Germany's
Messerschmitt Bf 110 The Messerschmitt Bf 110, often known unofficially as the Me 110,Because it was built before ''Bayerische Flugzeugwerke'' became Messerschmitt AG in July 1938, the Bf 110 was never officially given the designation Me 110. is a twin-engine (Des ...
and
Junkers Ju 88 The Junkers Ju 88 is a German World War II ''Luftwaffe'' twin-engined multirole combat aircraft. Junkers Aircraft and Motor Works (JFM) designed the plane in the mid-1930s as a so-called ''Schnellbomber'' ("fast bomber") that would be too fast ...
, Britain's
de Havilland Mosquito The de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito is a British twin-engined, shoulder-winged, multirole combat aircraft, introduced during the Second World War. Unusual in that its frame was constructed mostly of wood, it was nicknamed the "Wooden Wonder", or ...
and Bristol Beaufighter, and America's Douglas A-20, which then served as night fighters. The
Northrop P-61 Black Widow The Northrop P-61 Black Widow is a twin-engine United States Army Air Forces fighter aircraft of World War II. It was the first operational U.S. warplane designed as a night fighter, and the first aircraft designed specifically as a night fight ...
, a purpose-built night fighter, was the only fighter of the war that incorporated radar into its original design. Britain and America cooperated closely in the development of airborne radar, and Germany's radar technology generally lagged slightly behind Anglo-American efforts, while other combatants developed few radar-equipped fighters.


Post–World War II period

Several prototype fighter programs begun early in 1945 continued on after the war and led to advanced piston-engine fighters that entered production and operational service in 1946. A typical example is the
Lavochkin La-9 The Lavochkin La-9 (NATO reporting name Fritz) was a Soviet fighter aircraft produced shortly after World War II. It was one of the last piston engined fighters to be produced before the widespread adoption of the jet engine. Development La-9 r ...
'Fritz', which was an evolution of the successful wartime
Lavochkin La-7 The Lavochkin La-7 (russian: Лавочкин Ла-7) was a piston-engined single-seat Soviet fighter aircraft developed during World War II by the Lavochkin Design Bureau. It was a development and refinement of the Lavochkin La-5, and the la ...
'Fin'. Working through a series of prototypes, the La-120, La-126 and La-130, the Lavochkin design bureau sought to replace the La-7's wooden airframe with a metal one, as well as fit a
laminar-flow In fluid dynamics, laminar flow is characterized by fluid particles following smooth paths in layers, with each layer moving smoothly past the adjacent layers with little or no mixing. At low velocities, the fluid tends to flow without lateral mi ...
wing to improve maneuver performance, and increased armament. The La-9 entered service in August 1946 and was produced until 1948; it also served as the basis for the development of a long-range escort fighter, the La-11 'Fang', of which nearly 1200 were produced 1947–1951. Over the course of the Korean War, however, it became obvious that the day of the piston-engined fighter was coming to a close and that the future would lie with the jet fighter. This period also witnessed experimentation with jet-assisted piston engine aircraft. La-9 derivatives included examples fitted with two underwing auxiliary
pulsejet engines 300px, Diagram of a pulsejet A pulsejet engine (or pulse jet) is a type of jet engine in which combustion occurs in pulses. A pulsejet engine can be made with few or no moving parts, and is capable of running statically (i.e. it does not nee ...
(the La-9RD) and a similarly mounted pair of auxiliary
ramjet engines A ramjet, or athodyd (aero thermodynamic duct), is a form of airbreathing jet engine that uses the forward motion of the engine to produce thrust. Since it produces no thrust when stationary (no ram air) ramjet-powered vehicles require an as ...
(the La-138); however, neither of these entered service. One that did enter service – with the U.S. Navy in March 1945 – was the Ryan FR-1 Fireball; production was halted with the war's end on
VJ-Day Victory over Japan Day (also known as V-J Day, Victory in the Pacific Day, or V-P Day) is the day on which Imperial Japan surrendered in World War II, in effect bringing the war to an end. The term has been applied to both of the days on ...
, with only 66 having been delivered, and the type was withdrawn from service in 1947. The USAAF had ordered its first 13 mixed turboprop-turbojet-powered pre-production prototypes of the Consolidated Vultee XP-81 fighter, but this program was also canceled by VJ Day, with 80% of the engineering work completed.


Rocket-powered fighters

The first
rocket-powered aircraft A rocket-powered aircraft or rocket plane is an aircraft that uses a rocket engine for propulsion, sometimes in addition to airbreathing jet engines. Rocket planes can achieve much higher speeds than similarly sized jet aircraft, but typicall ...
was the
Lippisch Ente The Ente (german: duck) was the world's first full-sized rocket-powered aircraft. It was designed by Alexander Lippisch as a sailplane and first flown under power on June 11, 1928, piloted by Fritz Stamer as part of the Opel-RAK rocket progra ...
, which made a successful maiden flight in March 1928. The only pure rocket aircraft ever
mass-produced Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines. Together with job production and ba ...
was the
Messerschmitt Me 163 The Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet is a rocket-powered interceptor aircraft primarily designed and produced by the German aircraft manufacturer Messerschmitt. It is the only operational rocket-powered fighter aircraft in history as well as ...
B ''Komet'' in 1944, one of several German
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
projects aimed at developing high speed, point-defense aircraft. Later variants of the Me 262 (C-1a and C-2b) were also fitted with "mixed-power" jet/rocket powerplants, while earlier models were fitted with rocket boosters, but were not mass-produced with these modifications. The USSR experimented with a rocket-powered interceptor in the years immediately following World War II, the
Mikoyan-Gurevich I-270 The Mikoyan-Gurevich I-270 (Design Ж ("Zh") under Mikoyan-Gurevich's in-house designation sequence, USAF/DoD designation: Type 12) was a response to a Soviet Air Forces requirement in 1945 for a rocket-powered interceptor aircraft for the poi ...
. Only two were built. In the 1950s, the British developed mixed-power jet designs employing both rocket and jet engines to cover the performance gap that existed in turbojet designs. The rocket was the main engine for delivering the speed and height required for high-speed interception of high-level bombers and the turbojet gave increased fuel economy in other parts of flight, most notably to ensure the aircraft was able to make a powered landing rather than risking an unpredictable
gliding Gliding is a recreational activity and competitive air sport in which pilots fly unpowered aircraft known as gliders or sailplanes using naturally occurring currents of rising air in the atmosphere to remain airborne. The word ''soaring'' is al ...
return. The
Saunders-Roe SR.53 The Saunders-Roe SR.53 was a British prototype interceptor aircraft of mixed jet and rocket propulsion developed for the Royal Air Force (RAF) by Saunders-Roe in the early 1950s. As envisaged, the SR.53 would have been used as an interceptor a ...
was a successful design, and was planned for production when economics forced the British to curtail most aircraft programs in the late 1950s. Furthermore, rapid advancements in jet engine technology rendered mixed-power aircraft designs like Saunders-Roe's SR.53 (and the following SR.177) obsolete. The American
Republic XF-91 Thunderceptor The Republic XF-91 Thunderceptor (originally designated XP-91) is a mixed-propulsion prototype interceptor aircraft, developed by Republic Aviation. The aircraft would use a jet engine for most flight, and a cluster of four small rocket engines ...
–the first U.S. fighter to exceed Mach 1 in level flight– met a similar fate for the same reason, and no hybrid rocket-and-jet-engine fighter design has ever been placed into service. The only operational implementation of mixed propulsion was
Rocket-Assisted Take Off JATO (acronym for jet-assisted take-off) is a type of assisted take-off for helping overloaded aircraft into the air by providing additional thrust in the form of small rockets. The term ''JATO'' is used interchangeably with the (more specific ...
(RATO), a system rarely used in fighters, such as with the
zero-length launch The zero-length launch system or zero-length take-off system (ZLL, ZLTO, ZEL, ZELL) was a method whereby jet fighters and attack aircraft could be near-vertically launched using rocket motors to rapidly gain speed and altitude. Such rocket boost ...
, RATO-based takeoff scheme from special
launch platform A transporter erector launcher (TEL) is a missile vehicle with an integrated tractor unit that can carry, elevate to firing position and launch one or more missiles. History Such vehicles exist for both surface-to-air missiles and surface-to-s ...
s, tested out by both the United States and the Soviet Union, and made obsolete with advancements in
surface-to-air missile A surface-to-air missile (SAM), also known as a ground-to-air missile (GTAM) or surface-to-air guided weapon (SAGW), is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft or other missiles. It is one type of anti-aircraft syst ...
technology.


Jet-powered fighters

It has become common in the aviation community to classify jet fighters by "generations" for historical purposes. No official definitions of these generations exist; rather, they represent the notion of stages in the development of fighter-design approaches, performance capabilities, and technological evolution. Different authors have packed jet fighters into different generations. For example, Richard P. Hallion of the Secretary of the Air Force's Action Group classified the F-16 as a sixth-generation jet fighter. The timeframes associated with each generation remain inexact and are only indicative of the period during which their design philosophies and technology employment enjoyed a prevailing influence on fighter design and development. These timeframes also encompass the peak period of service entry for such aircraft.


First-generation subsonic jet fighters (mid-1940s to mid-1950s)

The first generation of jet fighters comprised the initial, subsonic jet-fighter designs introduced late in World War II (1939–1945) and in the early post-war period. They differed little from their piston-engined counterparts in appearance, and many employed unswept wings. Guns and cannon remained the principal armament. The need to obtain a decisive advantage in maximum speed pushed the development of turbojet-powered aircraft forward. Top speeds for fighters rose steadily throughout World War II as more powerful piston engines developed, and they approached transonic flight-speeds where the efficiency of propellers drops off, making further speed increases nearly impossible. The first jets developed during World War II and saw combat in the last two years of the war.
Messerschmitt Messerschmitt AG () was a German share-ownership limited, aircraft manufacturing corporation named after its chief designer Willy Messerschmitt from mid-July 1938 onwards, and known primarily for its World War II fighter aircraft, in partic ...
developed the first operational jet fighter, the
Me 262 The Messerschmitt Me 262, nicknamed ''Schwalbe'' (German: "Swallow") in fighter versions, or ''Sturmvogel'' (German: "Storm Bird") in fighter-bomber versions, is a fighter aircraft and fighter-bomber that was designed and produced by the German ...
A, primarily serving with the Luftwaffe's JG 7, the world's first jet-fighter wing. It was considerably faster than contemporary piston-driven aircraft, and in the hands of a competent pilot, proved quite difficult for Allied pilots to defeat. The Luftwaffe never deployed the design in numbers sufficient to stop the Allied air campaign, and a combination of fuel shortages, pilot losses, and technical difficulties with the engines kept the number of sorties low. Nevertheless, the Me 262 indicated the obsolescence of piston-driven aircraft. Spurred by reports of the German jets, Britain's
Gloster Meteor The Gloster Meteor was the first British jet fighter and the Allies of World War II, Allies' only jet aircraft to engage in combat operations during the Second World War. The Meteor's development was heavily reliant on its ground-breaking turb ...
entered production soon after, and the two entered service around the same time in 1944. Meteors commonly served to intercept the
V-1 flying bomb The V-1 flying bomb (german: Vergeltungswaffe 1 "Vengeance Weapon 1") was an early cruise missile. Its official Ministry of Aviation (Nazi Germany), Reich Aviation Ministry () designation was Fi 103. It was also known to the Allies as the buz ...
, as they were faster than available piston-engined fighters at the low altitudes used by the flying bombs. Nearer the end of World War II, the first military jet-powered light-fighter design, the Luftwaffe intended the
Heinkel He 162 The Heinkel He 162 ''Volksjäger'' (German language, German, "People's Fighter") was a German single-engine, jet-powered fighter aircraft fielded by the Luftwaffe in World War II. Developed under the Emergency Fighter Program, it was designed a ...
A ''Spatz'' (sparrow) to serve as a simple jet fighter for German home defense, with a few examples seeing squadron service with JG 1 by April 1945. By the end of the war almost all work on piston-powered fighters had ended. A few designs combining piston- and jet-engines for propulsion – such as the
Ryan FR Fireball The Ryan FR Fireball was an American mixed-power ( piston and jet-powered) fighter aircraft designed by Ryan Aeronautical for the United States Navy during World War II. It was the Navy's first aircraft with a jet engine. Only 66 aircraft we ...
– saw brief use, but by the end of the 1940s virtually all new fighters were jet-powered. Despite their advantages, the early jet-fighters were far from perfect. The operational lifespan of turbines were very short and engines were temperamental, while power could be adjusted only slowly and acceleration was poor (even if top speed was higher) compared to the final generation of piston fighters. Many squadrons of piston-engined fighters remained in service until the early to mid-1950s, even in the air forces of the major powers (though the types retained were the best of the World War II designs). Innovations including
ejection seats In aircraft, an ejection seat or ejector seat is a system designed to rescue the pilot or other crew of an aircraft (usually military) in an emergency. In most designs, the seat is propelled out of the aircraft by an explosive charge or rocke ...
, air brakes and all-moving tailplanes became widespread in this period. The Americans began using jet fighters operationally after World War II, the wartime
Bell P-59 The Bell P-59 Airacomet was a single-seat, twin jet-engine fighter aircraft that was designed and built by Bell Aircraft during World War II, the first produced in the United States. As the British were further along in jet engine developme ...
having proven a failure. The
Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star The Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star was the first jet fighter used operationally by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) during World War II. Designed and built by Lockheed in 1943 and delivered just 143 days from the start of design, prod ...
(soon re-designated F-80) was less elegant than the swept-wing Me 262, but had a cruise speed () as high as the maximum speed attainable by many piston-engined fighters. The British designed several new jets, including the distinctive single-engined
twin boom A twin-boom aircraft is characterised by two longitudinal booms (extended nacelle-like bodies). The booms may contain ancillary items such as fuel tanks and/or provide a supporting structure for other items. Typically, twin tailbooms support ...
de Havilland Vampire The de Havilland Vampire is a British jet fighter which was developed and manufactured by the de Havilland, de Havilland Aircraft Company. It was the second jet fighter to be operated by the Royal Air Force, RAF, after the Gloster Meteor, and ...
which Britain sold to the air forces of many nations. The British transferred the technology of the
Rolls-Royce Nene The Rolls-Royce RB.41 Nene is a 1940s British centrifugal compressor turbojet engine. The Nene was a complete redesign, rather than a scaled-up Rolls-Royce Derwent"Rolls-Royce Aero Engines" Bill Gunston, Patrick Stephens Limited 1989, , p.111 w ...
jet-engine to the Soviets, who soon put it to use in their advanced Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 fighter, which used fully
swept wing A swept wing is a wing that angles either backward or occasionally forward from its root rather than in a straight sideways direction. Swept wings have been flown since the pioneer days of aviation. Wing sweep at high speeds was first investigate ...
s that allowed flying closer to the speed of sound than straight-winged designs such as the F-80. The MiG-15s' top speed of proved quite a shock to the American F-80 pilots who encountered them in the
Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
, along with their armament of two cannons and a single cannon. Nevertheless, in the first jet-versus-jet dogfight, which occurred during the Korean War on 8 November 1950, an F-80 shot down two North Korean MiG-15s The Americans responded by rushing their own swept-wing fighter – the
North American F-86 Sabre The North American F-86 Sabre, sometimes called the Sabrejet, is a transonic jet fighter aircraft. Produced by North American Aviation, the Sabre is best known as the United States' first swept-wing fighter that could counter the swept-wing So ...
– into battle against the MiGs, which had similar transsonic performance. The two aircraft had different strengths and weaknesses, but were similar enough that victory could go either way. While the Sabres focused primarily on downing MiGs and scored favorably against those flown by the poorly-trained North Koreans, the MiGs in turn decimated US bomber formations and forced the withdrawal of numerous American types from operational service. The world's navies also transitioned to jets during this period, despite the need for catapult-launching of the new aircraft. The
U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...
adopted the
Grumman F9F Panther The Grumman F9F Panther is one of the United States Navy's first successful carrier-based jet fighters, as well as Grumman’s first jet fighter. A single-engined, straight-winged day fighter, it was armed with four cannons and could carry a wi ...
as their primary jet fighter in the Korean War period, and it was one of the first jet fighters to employ an
afterburner An afterburner (or reheat in British English) is an additional combustion component used on some jet engines, mostly those on military supersonic aircraft. Its purpose is to increase thrust, usually for supersonic flight, takeoff, and comba ...
. The
de Havilland Sea Vampire The de Havilland Vampire is a British jet fighter which was developed and manufactured by the de Havilland Aircraft Company. It was the second jet fighter to be operated by the RAF, after the Gloster Meteor, and the first to be powered by a s ...
became the Royal Navy's first jet fighter. Radar was used on specialized night-fighters such as the
Douglas F3D Skyknight The Douglas F3D Skyknight (later designated F-10 Skyknight) is an American twin-engined, mid-wing jet fighter aircraft manufactured by the Douglas Aircraft Company in El Segundo, California. The F3D was designed as a carrier-based all-weath ...
, which also downed MiGs over Korea, and later fitted to the
McDonnell F2H Banshee The McDonnell F2H Banshee (company designation McDonnell Model 24) is an American single-seat carrier-based jet fighter aircraft deployed by the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps from 1948 to 1961. A development of the FH Phant ...
and swept-wing
Vought F7U Cutlass The Vought F7U Cutlass is a United States Navy carrier-based jet fighter and fighter-bomber of the early Cold War era. It was a tailless aircraft for which aerodynamic data from projects of the German Arado and Messerschmitt companies, obtain ...
and
McDonnell F3H Demon The McDonnell F3H Demon is a subsonic swept-wing United States Navy carrier-based jet fighter aircraft. The successor to the F2H Banshee, the Demon was originally designed to use the Westinghouse J40 engine, but had to be redesigned to acc ...
as all-weather / night fighters. Early versions of Infra-red (IR)
air-to-air missile The newest and the oldest member of Rafael's Python family of AAM for comparisons, Python-5 (displayed lower-front) and Shafrir-1 (upper-back) An air-to-air missile (AAM) is a missile fired from an aircraft for the purpose of destroying a ...
s (AAMs) such as the
AIM-9 Sidewinder The AIM-9 Sidewinder (where "AIM" stands for "Air Intercept Missile") is a short-range air-to-air missile which entered service with the US Navy in 1956 and subsequently was adopted by the US Air Force in 1964. Since then the Sidewinder has prov ...
and radar-guided missiles such as the
AIM-7 Sparrow The AIM-7 Sparrow (Air Intercept Missile) is an American, medium-range semi-active radar homing air-to-air missile operated by the United States Air Force, United States Navy, and United States Marine Corps, as well as other various air forces ...
whose descendants remain in use , were first introduced on swept-wing subsonic Demon and Cutlass naval fighters.


Second-generation jet fighters (mid-1950s to early 1960s)

Technological breakthroughs, lessons learned from the aerial battles of the
Korean War , date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
, and a focus on conducting operations in a
nuclear warfare Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a theoretical military conflict or prepared political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conventional warfare, nuclear ...
environment shaped the development of second-generation fighters. Technological advances in
aerodynamics Aerodynamics, from grc, ἀήρ ''aero'' (air) + grc, δυναμική (dynamics), is the study of the motion of air, particularly when affected by a solid object, such as an airplane wing. It involves topics covered in the field of fluid dyn ...
,
propulsion Propulsion is the generation of force by any combination of pushing or pulling to modify the translational motion of an object, which is typically a rigid body (or an articulated rigid body) but may also concern a fluid. The term is derived from ...
and aerospace building-materials (primarily aluminum alloys) permitted designers to experiment with aeronautical innovations such as
swept wing A swept wing is a wing that angles either backward or occasionally forward from its root rather than in a straight sideways direction. Swept wings have been flown since the pioneer days of aviation. Wing sweep at high speeds was first investigate ...
s,
delta wing A delta wing is a wing shaped in the form of a triangle. It is named for its similarity in shape to the Greek uppercase letter delta (Δ). Although long studied, it did not find significant applications until the Jet Age, when it proved suitabl ...
s, and area-ruled fuselages. Widespread use of afterburning turbojet engines made these the first production aircraft to break the sound barrier, and the ability to sustain supersonic speeds in level flight became a common capability amongst fighters of this generation. Fighter designs also took advantage of new electronics technologies that made effective radars small enough to carry aboard smaller aircraft. Onboard radars permitted detection of enemy aircraft beyond visual range, thereby improving the handoff of targets by longer-ranged ground-based warning- and tracking-radars. Similarly, advances in guided-missile development allowed air-to-air missiles to begin supplementing the gun as the primary offensive weapon for the first time in fighter history. During this period, passive-homing infrared-guided (IR) missiles became commonplace, but early IR missile sensors had poor sensitivity and a very narrow
field of view The field of view (FoV) is the extent of the observable world that is seen at any given moment. In the case of optical instruments or sensors it is a solid angle through which a detector is sensitive to electromagnetic radiation. Human ...
(typically no more than 30°), which limited their effective use to only close-range,
tail-chase engagement A tail-chase engagement (or rear-aspect engagement) is one where a surface-to-air missile system or jet aircraft engages another aircraft while the target aircraft is flying away from the attacker. This makes engagement with cannons or infrared hom ...
s. Radar-guided (RF) missiles were introduced as well, but early examples proved unreliable. These
semi-active radar homing Semi-active radar homing (SARH) is a common type of missile guidance system, perhaps the most common type for longer-range Air-to-air missile, air-to-air and surface-to-air missile systems. The name refers to the fact that the missile itself is ...
(SARH) missiles could track and intercept an enemy aircraft "painted" by the launching aircraft's onboard radar. Medium- and long-range RF air-to-air missiles promised to open up a new dimension of "beyond-visual-range" (BVR) combat, and much effort concentrated on further development of this technology. The prospect of a potential
third world war World War III or the Third World War, often abbreviated as WWIII or WW3, are names given to a hypothetical worldwide large-scale military conflict subsequent to World War I and World War II. The term has been in use since at ...
featuring large mechanized armies and nuclear-weapon strikes led to a degree of specialization along two design approaches:
interceptors An interceptor aircraft, or simply interceptor, is a type of fighter aircraft designed specifically for the defensive interception role against an attacking enemy aircraft, particularly bombers and reconnaissance aircraft. Aircraft that are c ...
, such as the
English Electric Lightning The English Electric Lightning is a British fighter aircraft that served as an interceptor during the 1960s, the 1970s and into the late 1980s. It was capable of a top speed of above Mach 2. The Lightning was designed, developed, and manufa ...
and
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 (russian: Микоян и Гуревич МиГ-21; NATO reporting name: Fishbed) is a supersonic jet aircraft, jet fighter aircraft, fighter and interceptor aircraft, designed by the Mikoyan, Mikoyan-Gurevich OKB, De ...
F; and fighter-bombers, such as the
Republic F-105 Thunderchief The Republic F-105 Thunderchief is an American supersonic fighter-bomber that served with the United States Air Force from 1958 to 1984. Capable of Mach 2, it conducted the majority of strike bombing missions during the early years of the Vie ...
and the
Sukhoi Su-7B The Sukhoi Su-7 ( NATO designation name: Fitter-A) is a swept wing, supersonic fighter aircraft developed by the Soviet Union in 1955. Originally, it was designed as a tactical, low-level dogfighter, but was not successful in this role. On the ...
.
Dogfight A dogfight, or dog fight, is an aerial battle between fighter aircraft conducted at close range. Dogfighting first occurred in Mexico in 1913, shortly after the invention of the airplane. Until at least 1992, it was a component in every majo ...
ing, ''per se'', became de-emphasized in both cases. The interceptor was an outgrowth of the vision that guided missiles would completely replace guns and combat would take place at beyond-visual ranges. As a result, strategists designed interceptors with a large missile-payload and a powerful radar, sacrificing agility in favor of high speed, altitude ceiling and
rate of climb In aeronautics, the rate of climb (RoC) is an aircraft's vertical speed, that is the positive or negative rate of altitude change with respect to time. In most ICAO member countries, even in otherwise metric countries, this is usually expressed ...
. With a primary air-defense role, emphasis was placed on the ability to intercept strategic bombers flying at high altitudes. Specialized point-defense interceptors often had limited range and few, if any, ground-attack capabilities. Fighter-bombers could swing between air-superiority and ground-attack roles, and were often designed for a high-speed, low-altitude dash to deliver their ordnance. Television- and IR-guided air-to-surface missiles were introduced to augment traditional
gravity bomb An unguided bomb, also known as a free-fall bomb, gravity bomb, dumb bomb, or iron bomb, is a conventional or nuclear aircraft-delivered bomb that does not contain a guidance system and hence simply follows a ballistic trajectory. This describe ...
s, and some were also equipped to deliver a
nuclear bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...
.


Third-generation jet fighters (early 1960s to circa 1970)

The third generation witnessed continued maturation of second-generation innovations, but it is most marked by renewed emphases on maneuverability and on traditional ground-attack capabilities. Over the course of the 1960s, increasing combat experience with guided missiles demonstrated that combat would devolve into close-in dogfights. Analog
avionics Avionics (a blend word, blend of ''aviation'' and ''electronics'') are the Electronics, electronic systems used on aircraft. Avionic systems include communications, Air navigation, navigation, the display and management of multiple systems, ...
began to appear, replacing older "steam-gauge" cockpit instrumentation. Enhancements to the aerodynamic performance of third-generation fighters included
flight control surfaces Aircraft flight control surfaces are aerodynamic devices allowing a pilot to adjust and control the aircraft's flight attitude. Development of an effective set of flight control surfaces was a critical advance in the development of aircraft. Ea ...
such as canards, powered
slats Super Low Altitude Test Satellite (SLATS) or Tsubame was a JAXA satellite intended to demonstrate operations in very low Earth orbit (VLEO, below 200 km), using ion engines to counteract aerodynamic drag from the Earth's atmosphere which i ...
, and
blown flap Blown flaps, or jet flaps, are powered aerodynamic high-lift devices used on the wings of certain aircraft to improve their low-speed flight characteristics. They use air blown through nozzles to shape the airflow over the rear edge of the wing, ...
s. A number of technologies would be tried for
vertical/short takeoff and landing A vertical and/or short take-off and landing (V/STOL) aircraft is an airplane able to take-off or land vertically or on short runways. Vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft are a subset of V/STOL craft that do not require runways at al ...
, but
thrust vectoring Thrust vectoring, also known as thrust vector control (TVC), is the ability of an aircraft, rocket, or other vehicle to manipulate the direction of the thrust from its engine(s) or motor(s) to control the attitude or angular velocity of the v ...
would be successful on the Harrier. Growth in air-combat capability focused on the introduction of improved air-to-air missiles, radar systems, and other avionics. While guns remained standard equipment (early models of F-4 being a notable exception), air-to-air missiles became the primary weapons for air-superiority fighters, which employed more sophisticated radars and medium-range RF AAMs to achieve greater "stand-off" ranges, however, kill probabilities proved unexpectedly low for RF missiles due to poor reliability and improved
electronic countermeasures An electronic countermeasure (ECM) is an electrical or electronic device designed to trick or deceive radar, sonar, or other detection systems, like infrared (IR) or lasers. It may be used both offensively and defensively to deny targeting info ...
(ECM) for spoofing radar seekers. Infrared-homing AAMs saw their fields of view expand to 45°, which strengthened their tactical usability. Nevertheless, the low dogfight loss-exchange ratios experienced by American fighters in the skies over Vietnam led the U.S. Navy to establish its famous "TOPGUN" fighter-weapons school, which provided a graduate-level curriculum to train fleet fighter-pilots in advanced Air Combat Maneuvering (ACM) and
Dissimilar air combat training Dissimilar air combat training (DACT) was introduced as a formal part of US air combat training after disappointing aerial combat exchange rates in the Vietnam War. Traditionally, pilots would undertake air combat training against similar aircra ...
(DACT) tactics and techniques. This era also saw an expansion in ground-attack capabilities, principally in guided missiles, and witnessed the introduction of the first truly effective avionics for enhanced ground attack, including terrain-avoidance systems.
Air-to-surface missile An air-to-surface missile (ASM) or air-to-ground missile (AGM) is a missile designed to be launched from military aircraft at targets on land or sea. There are also unpowered guided glide bombs not considered missiles. The two most common prop ...
s (ASM) equipped with electro-optical (E-O) contrast seekers – such as the initial model of the widely used
AGM-65 Maverick The AGM-65 Maverick is an air-to-ground missile (AGM) designed for close air support. It is the most widely produced precision-guided missile in the Western world, and is effective against a wide range of tactical targets, including armor, ...
– became standard weapons, and
laser-guided bomb A laser-guided bomb (LGB) is a guided bomb that uses semi-active laser guidance to strike a designated target with greater accuracy than an unguided bomb. First developed by the United States during the Vietnam War, laser-guided bombs quickly p ...
s (LGBs) became widespread in an effort to improve precision-attack capabilities. Guidance for such
precision-guided munition A precision-guided munition (PGM, smart weapon, smart munition, smart bomb) is a guided munition intended to precisely hit a specific target, to minimize collateral damage and increase lethality against intended targets. During the First Gul ...
s (PGM) was provided by externally-mounted
targeting pods Targeting pods (TGP) are target designation tools used by attack aircraft for identifying targets and guiding precision-guided munition (PGM) such as laser-guided bombs to those targets. The first targeting pods were developed in conjunction with ...
, which were introduced in the mid-1960s. The third generation also led to the development of new automatic-fire weapons, primarily chain-guns that use an electric motor to drive the mechanism of a cannon. This allowed a plane to carry a single multi-barrel weapon (such as the Vulcan), and provided greater accuracy and rates of fire. Powerplant reliability increased, and jet engines became "smokeless" to make it harder to sight aircraft at long distances. Dedicated ground-attack aircraft (like the
Grumman A-6 Intruder The Grumman A-6 Intruder is an American twinjet all-weather attack aircraft developed and manufactured by American aircraft company Grumman Aerospace and operated by the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps. It was designed in response to a 1957 r ...
,
SEPECAT Jaguar The SEPECAT Jaguar is an Anglo-French jet attack aircraft originally used by the British Royal Air Force and the French Air Force in the close air support and nuclear strike role. It is still in service with the Indian Air Force. Originall ...
and
LTV A-7 Corsair II The LTV A-7 Corsair II is an American carrier-capable subsonic light attack aircraft designed and manufactured by Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV). The A-7 was developed during the early 1960s as replacement for the Douglas A-4 Skyhawk. Its design was ...
) offered longer range, more sophisticated night-attack systems or lower cost than supersonic fighters. With
variable-geometry The wing configuration of a fixed-wing aircraft (including both gliders and powered aeroplanes) is its arrangement of lifting and related surfaces. Aircraft designs are often classified by their wing configuration. For example, the Superma ...
wings, the supersonic
F-111 The General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark is a retired supersonic, medium-range, multirole combat aircraft. Production variants of the F-111 had roles that included ground attack (e.g. interdiction), strategic bombing (including nuclear weapons ca ...
introduced the
Pratt & Whitney TF30 The Pratt & Whitney TF30 (company designation JTF10A) is a military low-bypass turbofan engine originally designed by Pratt & Whitney for the subsonic F6D Missileer fleet defense fighter, but this project was cancelled. It was later adapted with ...
, the first turbofan equipped with afterburner. The ambitious project sought to create a versatile common fighter for many roles and services. It would serve well as an all-weather bomber, but lacked the performance to defeat other fighters. The McDonnell F-4 Phantom was designed to capitalize on radar and missile technology as an all-weather interceptor, but emerged as a versatile strike-bomber nimble enough to prevail in air combat, adopted by the U.S. Navy, Air Force and
Marine Corps Marines, or naval infantry, are typically a military force trained to operate in littoral zones in support of naval operations. Historically, tasks undertaken by marines have included helping maintain discipline and order aboard the ship (refle ...
. Despite numerous shortcomings that would be not be fully addressed until newer fighters, the Phantom claimed 280 aerial kills (more than any other U.S. fighter) over Vietnam. With range and payload capabilities that rivaled that of World War II bombers such as B-24 Liberator, the Phantom would become a highly successful multirole aircraft.


Fourth-generation jet fighters (circa 1970 to mid-1990s)

Fourth-generation fighters continued the trend towards multirole configurations, and were equipped with increasingly sophisticated avionics- and weapon-systems. Fighter designs were significantly influenced by the Energy-Maneuverability (E-M) theory developed by Colonel John Boyd and mathematician Thomas Christie, based upon Boyd's combat experience in the Korean War and as a fighter-tactics instructor during the 1960s. E-M theory emphasized the value of aircraft-specific energy maintenance as an advantage in fighter combat. Boyd perceived maneuverability as the primary means of getting "inside" an adversary's decision-making cycle, a process Boyd called the "
OODA loop The OODA loop is the cycle ''observe–orient–decide–act'', developed by military strategist and United States Air Force Colonel John Boyd. Boyd applied the concept to the combat operations process, often at the operational level during m ...
" (for "Observation-Orientation-Decision-Action"). This approach emphasized aircraft designs capable of performing "fast transients" – quick changes in speed, altitude, and direction – as opposed to relying chiefly on high speed alone. E-M characteristics were first applied to the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle, but Boyd and his supporters believed these performance parameters called for a small, lightweight aircraft with a larger, higher-lift wing. The small size would minimize drag and increase the
thrust-to-weight ratio Thrust-to-weight ratio is a dimensionless ratio of thrust to weight of a rocket, jet engine, propeller engine, or a vehicle propelled by such an engine that is an indicator of the performance of the engine or vehicle. The instantaneous thrust-to- ...
, while the larger wing would minimize
wing loading In aerodynamics, wing loading is the total mass of an aircraft or flying animal divided by the area of its wing. The stalling speed of an aircraft in straight, level flight is partly determined by its wing loading. An aircraft or animal with a ...
; while the reduced wing loading tends to lower top speed and can cut range, it increases payload capacity and the range reduction can be compensated for by increased fuel in the larger wing. The efforts of Boyd's "
Fighter mafia The Fighter Mafia was a controversial group of U.S. Air Force officers and civilian defense analysts who, in the 1960s and 1970s, advocated for fighter design criteria in opposition to those of the design boards of the time. Their assertions includ ...
" would result in the
General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is a single-engine Multirole combat aircraft, multirole fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force (USAF). Designed as an air superiority day fighter, it ...
(now
Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American aerospace, arms, defense, information security, and technology corporation with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It ...
's). The F-16's maneuverability was further enhanced by its slight aerodynamic instability. This technique, called "
relaxed static stability In aviation, relaxed stability refers to an aircraft with low or negative stability. An aircraft with negative stability will have a tendency to change its pitch and bank angles spontaneously. An aircraft with negative stability cannot be trim ...
" (RSS), was made possible by introduction of the "fly-by-wire" (FBW) flight-control system (FLCS), which in turn was enabled by advances in computers and in system-integration techniques. Analog avionics, required to enable FBW operations, became a fundamental requirement, but began to be replaced by digital flight-control systems in the latter half of the 1980s. Likewise, Full Authority Digital Engine Controls (FADEC) to electronically manage powerplant performance was introduced with the
Pratt & Whitney F100 The Pratt & Whitney F100 (company designation JTF22) is an afterburning turbofan engine manufactured by Pratt & Whitney that powers the F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon. Development In 1967, the United States Navy and United States Air Forc ...
turbofan. The F-16's sole reliance on electronics and wires to relay flight commands, instead of the usual cables and mechanical linkage controls, earned it the
sobriquet A sobriquet ( ), or soubriquet, is a nickname, sometimes assumed, but often given by another, that is descriptive. A sobriquet is distinct from a pseudonym, as it is typically a familiar name used in place of a real name, without the need of expla ...
of "the electric jet". Electronic FLCS and FADEC quickly became essential components of all subsequent fighter designs. Other innovative technologies introduced in fourth-generation fighters included
pulse-Doppler A pulse-Doppler radar is a radar system that determines the range to a target using pulse-timing techniques, and uses the Doppler effect of the returned signal to determine the target object's velocity. It combines the features of pulse radars an ...
fire-control radar A fire-control radar (FCR) is a radar that is designed specifically to provide information (mainly target azimuth, elevation, range and range rate) to a fire-control system in order to direct weapons such that they hit a target. They are sometim ...
s (providing a "
look-down/shoot-down A radar system has look-down/shoot-down capability if it can detect, track and guide a weapon to an air target that (as seen by the radar) is silhouetted against the ground. Problem and naming Airborne intercept radar relying exclusively on time ...
" capability),
head-up display A head-up display, or heads-up display, also known as a HUD (), is any transparent display that presents data without requiring users to look away from their usual viewpoints. The origin of the name stems from a pilot being able to view informa ...
s (HUD), "hands on throttle-and-stick" (HOTAS) controls, and
multi-function display A multifunction display (MFD) is a small-screen ( CRT or LCD) surrounded by multiple soft keys (configurable buttons) that can be used to display information to the user in numerous configurable ways. MFDs originated in aviation, first in mil ...
s (MFD), all essential equipment . Aircraft designers began to incorporate
composite material A composite material (also called a composition material or shortened to composite, which is the common name) is a material which is produced from two or more constituent materials. These constituent materials have notably dissimilar chemical or ...
s in the form of bonded-aluminum honeycomb structural elements and
graphite epoxy Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (American English), carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English), carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics, carbon-fiber reinforced-thermoplastic (CFRP, CRP, CFRTP), ...
laminate Lamination is the technique/process of manufacturing a material in multiple layers, so that the composite material achieves improved strength, stability, sound insulation, appearance, or other properties from the use of the differing materials ...
skins to reduce weight. Infrared search-and-track (IRST) sensors became widespread for air-to-ground weapons delivery, and appeared for air-to-air combat as well. "All-aspect" IR AAM became standard air superiority weapons, which permitted engagement of enemy aircraft from any angle (although the field of view remained relatively limited). The first long-range active-radar-homing RF AAM entered service with the
AIM-54 Phoenix The AIM-54 Phoenix is an American radar-guided, long-range air-to-air missile (AAM), carried in clusters of up to six missiles on the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, its only operational launch platform. The Phoenix was the United States' only long-range ...
, which solely equipped the
Grumman F-14 Tomcat The Grumman F-14 Tomcat is an American carrier-capable supersonic, twin-engine, two-seat, twin-tail, variable-sweep wing fighter aircraft. The Tomcat was developed for the United States Navy's Naval Fighter Experimental (VFX) program after the ...
, one of the few variable-sweep-wing fighter designs to enter production. Even with the tremendous advancement of air-to-air missiles in this era, internal guns were standard equipment. Another revolution came in the form of a stronger reliance on ease of maintenance, which led to standardization of parts, reductions in the numbers of access panels and lubrication points, and overall parts reduction in more complicated equipment like the engines. Some early jet fighters required 50
man-hour A man-hour (sometimes referred to as person-hour) is the amount of work performed by the average worker in one hour. It is used for estimation of the total amount of uninterrupted labor required to perform a task. For example, researching and wr ...
s of work by a ground crew for every hour the aircraft was in the air; later models substantially reduced this to allow faster turn-around times and more sorties in a day. Some modern military aircraft only require 10-man-hours of work per hour of flight time, and others are even more efficient. Aerodynamic innovations included variable-camber wings and exploitation of the vortex lift effect to achieve higher
angles of attack In fluid dynamics, angle of attack (AOA, α, or \alpha) is the angle between a reference line on a body (often the chord line of an airfoil) and the vector representing the relative motion between the body and the fluid through which it is ...
through the addition of leading-edge extension devices such as strakes. Unlike interceptors of the previous eras, most fourth-generation air-superiority fighters were designed to be agile dogfighters (although the
Mikoyan MiG-31 The Mikoyan MiG-31 (russian: link=no, Микоян МиГ-31; NATO reporting name: Foxhound) is a supersonic interceptor aircraft that was developed for use by the Soviet Air Forces. The aircraft was designed by the Mikoyan design bureau as a ...
and
Panavia Tornado ADV The Panavia Tornado Air Defence Variant (ADV) was a long-range, twin-engine interceptor version of the swing-wing Panavia Tornado. The aircraft's first flight was on 27 October 1979, and it entered service with the Royal Air Force (RAF) in 19 ...
are notable exceptions). The continually rising cost of fighters, however, continued to emphasize the value of multirole fighters. The need for both types of fighters led to the "high/low mix" concept, which envisioned a high-capability and high-cost core of dedicated air-superiority fighters (like the F-15 and Su-27) supplemented by a larger contingent of lower-cost
multi-role fighter A multirole combat aircraft (MRCA) is a combat aircraft intended to perform different roles in combat. These roles can include air to air combat, air support, aerial bombing, reconnaissance, electronic warfare, and suppression of air defense ...
s (such as the F-16 and
MiG-29 The Mikoyan MiG-29 (russian: Микоян МиГ-29; NATO reporting name: Fulcrum) is a twin-engine fighter aircraft designed in the Soviet Union. Developed by the Mikoyan design bureau as an air superiority fighter during the 1970s, the Mi ...
). Most fourth-generation fighters, such as the
McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet The McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet is an all-weather, twinjet, twin-engine, supersonic aircraft, supersonic, carrier-based aircraft, carrier-capable, Multirole combat aircraft, multirole combat aircraft, designed as both a Fighter aircraft, ...
, HAL Tejas,
JF-17 The CAC/PAC JF-17 Thunder ( ur , جے ایف-17 گرج), or FC-1 ''Xiaolong'' (), is a lightweight, single-engine, multi-role combat aircraft developed jointly by the Chengdu Aircraft Corporation (CAC) of China and the Pakistan Aeronautical ...
and
Dassault Mirage 2000 The Dassault Mirage 2000 is a French multirole, single-engine, fourth-generation jet fighter manufactured by Dassault Aviation. It was designed in the late 1970s as a lightweight fighter to replace the Mirage III for the French Air Force (''Arm ...
, are true multirole warplanes, designed as such from the start. This was facilitated by multimode avionics that could switch seamlessly between air and ground modes. The earlier approaches of adding on strike capabilities or designing separate models specialized for different roles generally became ''passé'' (with the
Panavia Tornado The Panavia Tornado is a family of twin-engine, variable-sweep wing multirole combat aircraft, jointly developed and manufactured by Italy, the United Kingdom and West Germany. There are three primary Tornado variants: the Tornado IDS (inter ...
being an exception in this regard). Attack roles were generally assigned to dedicated ground-attack aircraft such as the
Sukhoi Su-25 The Sukhoi Su-25 ''Grach'' (russian: Грач (''rook''); NATO reporting name: Frogfoot) is a subsonic, single-seat, twin-engine jet aircraft developed in the Soviet Union by Sukhoi. It was designed to provide close air support for Soviet Gro ...
and the
A-10 Thunderbolt II The Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II is a single-seat, twin-turbofan, straight-wing, subsonic attack aircraft developed by Fairchild Republic for the United States Air Force (USAF). In service since 1976, it is named for the Republic ...
. A typical
US Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...
fighter
wing A wing is a type of fin that produces lift while moving through air or some other fluid. Accordingly, wings have streamlined cross-sections that are subject to aerodynamic forces and act as airfoils. A wing's aerodynamic efficiency is expres ...
of the period might contain a mix of one air superiority
squadron Squadron may refer to: * Squadron (army), a military unit of cavalry, tanks, or equivalent subdivided into troops or tank companies * Squadron (aviation), a military unit that consists of three or four flights with a total of 12 to 24 aircraft, ...
(F-15C), one strike fighter squadron (F-15E), and two multirole fighter squadrons (F-16C). Perhaps the most novel technology introduced for combat aircraft was '' stealth'', which involves the use of special "low-observable" (L-O) materials and design techniques to reduce the susceptibility of an aircraft to detection by the enemy's sensor systems, particularly radars. The first
stealth aircraft Stealth aircraft are designed to avoid detection using a variety of technologies that reduce reflection/emission of radar, infrared, visible light, radio frequency (RF) spectrum, and audio, collectively known as stealth technology. The F-117 N ...
introduced were the
Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk is a retired American single-seat, twin-engine stealth attack aircraft developed by Lockheed's secretive Skunk Works division and operated by the United States Air Force (USAF). It was the first operational air ...
attack aircraft (introduced in 1983) and the
Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit The Northrop (later Northrop Grumman) B-2 Spirit, also known as the Stealth Bomber, is an American heavy strategic bomber, featuring low-observable stealth technology designed to penetrate dense anti-aircraft defenses. A subsonic flying ...
bomber (first flew in 1989). Although no stealthy fighters per se appeared among the fourth generation, some radar-absorbent coatings and other L-O treatments developed for these programs are reported to have been subsequently applied to fourth-generation fighters.


4.5-generation jet fighters (1990s to 2000s)

The end of the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
in 1992 led many governments to significantly decrease military spending as a "
peace dividend ''Peace dividend'' was a political slogan popularized by US President George H. W. Bush and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the light of the 1988–1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, that described the economic benefit of a decrease in d ...
". Air force inventories were cut. Research and development programs working on "fifth-generation" fighters took serious hits. Many programs were canceled during the first half of the 1990s, and those that survived were "stretched out". While the practice of slowing the pace of development reduces annual investment expenses, it comes at the penalty of increased overall program and unit costs over the long-term. In this instance, however, it also permitted designers to make use of the tremendous achievements being made in the fields of computers, avionics and other flight electronics, which had become possible largely due to the advances made in
microchip An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...
and
semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical resistivity and conductivity, electrical conductivity value falling between that of a electrical conductor, conductor, such as copper, and an insulator (electricity), insulator, such as glas ...
technologies in the 1980s and 1990s. This opportunity enabled designers to develop fourth-generation designs – or redesigns – with significantly enhanced capabilities. These improved designs have become known as "Generation 4.5" fighters, recognizing their intermediate nature between the 4th and 5th generations, and their contribution in furthering development of individual fifth-generation technologies. The primary characteristics of this sub-generation are the application of advanced digital avionics and aerospace materials, modest signature reduction (primarily RF "stealth"), and highly integrated systems and weapons. These fighters have been designed to operate in a " network-centric" battlefield environment and are principally multirole aircraft. Key weapons technologies introduced include beyond-visual-range (BVR) AAMs;
Global Positioning System The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite sy ...
(GPS)–guided weapons,
solid-state Solid state, or solid matter, is one of the four fundamental states of matter. Solid state may also refer to: Electronics * Solid-state electronics, circuits built of solid materials * Solid state ionics, study of ionic conductors and their use ...
phased-array In antenna theory, a phased array usually means an electronically scanned array, a computer-controlled array of antennas which creates a beam of radio waves that can be electronically steered to point in different directions without moving th ...
radars; helmet-mounted sights; and improved secure, jamming-resistant datalinks. Thrust vectoring to further improve transient maneuvering capabilities has also been adopted by many 4.5th generation fighters, and uprated powerplants have enabled some designs to achieve a degree of "
supercruise Supercruise is sustained supersonic flight of a supersonic aircraft with a useful cargo, passenger, or weapons load without using afterburner (also known as "reheat"). Many supersonic military aircraft are not capable of supercruise and can only m ...
" ability. Stealth characteristics are focused primarily on frontal-aspect
radar cross section Radar cross-section (RCS), also called radar signature, is a measure of how detectable an object is by radar. A larger RCS indicates that an object is more easily detected. An object reflects a limited amount of radar energy back to the source. ...
(RCS) signature-reduction techniques including radar-absorbent materials (RAM), L-O coatings and limited shaping techniques. "Half-generation" designs are either based on existing airframes or are based on new airframes following similar design theory to previous iterations; however, these modifications have introduced the structural use of composite materials to reduce weight, greater fuel fractions to increase range, and signature reduction treatments to achieve lower RCS compared to their predecessors. Prime examples of such aircraft, which are based on new airframe designs making extensive use of carbon-fiber composites, include the
Eurofighter Typhoon The Eurofighter Typhoon is a European multinational twin-engine, canard delta wing, multirole fighter. The Typhoon was designed originally as an air-superiority fighter and is manufactured by a consortium of Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo ...
,
Dassault Rafale The Dassault Rafale (, literally meaning "gust of wind", and "burst of fire" in a more military sense) is a French twin-engine, canard delta wing, multirole fighter aircraft designed and built by Dassault Aviation. Equipped with a wide ran ...
,
Saab JAS 39 Gripen The Saab JAS 39 Gripen (; English: ''griffin'') is a light single-engine multirole fighter aircraft manufactured by the Swedish aerospace and defense company Saab AB. The Gripen has a delta wing and canard configuration with relaxed stabilit ...
, and HAL Tejas Mark 1A. Apart from these fighter jets, most of the 4.5 generation aircraft are actually modified variants of existing airframes from the earlier fourth generation fighter jets. Such fighter jets are generally heavier and examples include the
Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet The Boeing F/A-18E and F/A-18F Super Hornet are twin-engine, carrier-capable, multirole fighter aircraft variants based on the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet. The F/A-18E single-seat and F/A-18F tandem-seat variants are larger and more adv ...
, which is an evolution of the
F/A-18 Hornet The McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet is an all-weather, twinjet, twin-engine, supersonic aircraft, supersonic, carrier-based aircraft, carrier-capable, Multirole combat aircraft, multirole combat aircraft, designed as both a Fighter aircraft, ...
, the
F-15E Strike Eagle The McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) F-15E Strike Eagle is an American all-weather multirole strike fighter derived from the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle. The F-15E was designed in the 1980s for long-range, high-speed interdiction without rely ...
, which is a ground-attack/multi-role variant of the
F-15 Eagle The McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle is an American twin-engine, all-weather tactical fighter aircraft designed by McDonnell Douglas (now part of Boeing). Following reviews of proposals, the United States Air Force selected McDonnell Douglas's ...
, the Su-30SM and Su-35S modified variants of the Sukhoi Su-27, and the MiG-35 upgraded version of the
Mikoyan MiG-29 The Mikoyan MiG-29 (russian: Микоян МиГ-29; NATO reporting name: Fulcrum) is a twin-engine fighter aircraft designed in the Soviet Union. Developed by the Mikoyan design bureau as an air superiority fighter during the 1970s, the MiG- ...
. The Su-30SM/Su-35S and MiG-35 feature
thrust vectoring Thrust vectoring, also known as thrust vector control (TVC), is the ability of an aircraft, rocket, or other vehicle to manipulate the direction of the thrust from its engine(s) or motor(s) to control the attitude or angular velocity of the v ...
engine nozzles to enhance maneuvering. The upgraded version of F-16 is also considered a member of the 4.5 generation aircraft. Generation 4.5 fighters first entered service in the early 1990s, and most of them are still being produced and evolved. It is quite possible that they may continue in production alongside fifth-generation fighters due to the expense of developing the advanced level of stealth technology needed to achieve aircraft designs featuring very low observables (VLO), which is one of the defining features of fifth-generation fighters. Of the 4.5th generation designs, the Strike Eagle, Super Hornet, Typhoon, Gripen, and Rafale have been used in combat. The U.S. government has defined 4.5 generation fighter aircraft as those that "(1) have advanced capabilities, including— (A) AESA radar; (B) high capacity data-link; and (C) enhanced avionics; and (2) have the ability to deploy current and reasonably foreseeable advanced armaments."


Fifth-generation jet fighters (2000s to 2020s)

Currently the cutting edge of fighter design, fifth-generation fighters are characterized by being designed from the start to operate in a network-centric combat environment, and to feature extremely low, all-aspect, multi-spectral signatures employing advanced materials and shaping techniques. They have multifunction
AESA Aesa or Aisa ( grc, Αἶσα) was a town of ancient Macedonia. Aesa belonged to the Delian League since it appears on a tribute list to Athens in 434/3 BCE. The editors of the Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World identify Aesa wi ...
radars with high-bandwidth, low-probability of intercept (LPI) data transmission capabilities. The
infra-red search and track An infrared search and track (IRST) system (sometimes known as infrared sighting and tracking) is a method for detecting and tracking objects which give off infrared radiation, such as the infrared signatures of jet aircraft and helicopters. ...
sensors incorporated for air-to-air combat as well as for air-to-ground weapons delivery in the 4.5th generation fighters are now fused in with other sensors for Situational Awareness IRST or SAIRST, which constantly tracks all targets of interest around the aircraft so the pilot need not guess when he glances. These sensors, along with advanced
avionics Avionics (a blend word, blend of ''aviation'' and ''electronics'') are the Electronics, electronic systems used on aircraft. Avionic systems include communications, Air navigation, navigation, the display and management of multiple systems, ...
,
glass cockpit A glass cockpit is an aircraft cockpit that features electronic (digital) flight instrument displays, typically large LCD screens, rather than the traditional style of analog dials and gauges. While a traditional cockpit relies on numerous mech ...
s, helmet-mounted sights (not currently on F-22), and improved secure, jamming-resistant LPI datalinks are highly integrated to provide multi-platform, multi-sensor
data fusion Data fusion is the process of integrating multiple data sources to produce more consistent, accurate, and useful information than that provided by any individual data source. Data fusion processes are often categorized as low, intermediate, or hig ...
for vastly improved
situational awareness Situational awareness or situation awareness (SA) is the perception of environmental elements and events with respect to time or space, the comprehension of their meaning, and the projection of their future status. An alternative definition is tha ...
while easing the pilot's workload. Avionics suites rely on extensive use of very high-speed integrated circuit (VHSIC) technology, common modules, and high-speed data buses. Overall, the integration of all these elements is claimed to provide fifth-generation fighters with a "first-look, first-shot, first-kill capability". A key attribute of fifth-generation fighters is a small
radar cross-section Radar cross-section (RCS), also called radar signature, is a measure of how detectable an object is by radar. A larger RCS indicates that an object is more easily detected. An object reflects a limited amount of radar energy back to the source. ...
. Great care has been taken in designing its layout and internal structure to minimize RCS over a broad bandwidth of detection and tracking radar frequencies; furthermore, to maintain its VLO signature during combat operations, primary weapons are carried in internal weapon bays that are only briefly opened to permit weapon launch. Furthermore, stealth technology has advanced to the point where it can be employed without a tradeoff with aerodynamics performance, in contrast to previous stealth efforts. Some attention has also been paid to reducing IR signatures, especially on the F-22. Detailed information on these signature-reduction techniques is classified, but in general includes special shaping approaches,
thermoset In materials science, a thermosetting polymer, often called a thermoset, is a polymer that is obtained by irreversibly hardening (" curing") a soft solid or viscous liquid prepolymer ( resin). Curing is induced by heat or suitable radiation ...
and
thermoplastic A thermoplastic, or thermosoft plastic, is any plastic polymer material that becomes pliable or moldable at a certain elevated temperature and solidifies upon cooling. Most thermoplastics have a high molecular weight. The polymer chains associate ...
materials, extensive structural use of advanced composites, conformal sensors, heat-resistant coatings, low-observable wire meshes to cover intake and cooling vents, heat ablating tiles on the exhaust troughs (seen on the
Northrop YF-23 The Northrop/McDonnell Douglas YF-23 is an American single-seat, twin-engine stealth fighter aircraft technology demonstrator designed for the United States Air Force (USAF). The design was a finalist in the USAF's Advanced Tactical Fighter ( ...
), and coating internal and external metal areas with radar-absorbent materials and paint (RAM/RAP). The AESA radar offers unique capabilities for fighters (and it is also quickly becoming essential for Generation 4.5 aircraft designs, as well as being retrofitted onto some fourth-generation aircraft). In addition to its high resistance to ECM and LPI features, it enables the fighter to function as a sort of "mini- AWACS", providing high-gain
electronic support measures In military telecommunications, electronic support (ES) or electronic support measures (ESM) gather intelligence through passive "listening" to electromagnetic radiations of military interest. They are an aspect of electronic warfare involving ac ...
(ESM) and
electronic warfare Electronic warfare (EW) is any action involving the use of the electromagnetic spectrum (EM spectrum) or directed energy to control the spectrum, attack an enemy, or impede enemy assaults. The purpose of electronic warfare is to deny the opponen ...
(EW) jamming functions. Other technologies common to this latest generation of fighters includes integrated electronic warfare system (INEWS) technology, integrated communications, navigation, and identification (CNI) avionics technology, centralized "vehicle health monitoring" systems for ease of maintenance, fiber optics data transmission, stealth technology and even hovering capabilities. Maneuver performance remains important and is enhanced by thrust-vectoring, which also helps reduce takeoff and landing distances. Supercruise may or may not be featured; it permits flight at supersonic speeds without the use of the afterburner – a device that significantly increases IR signature when used in full military power. Such aircraft are sophisticated and expensive. The fifth generation was ushered in by the Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 Raptor in late 2005. The U.S. Air Force originally planned to acquire 650 F-22s, but now only 187 will be built. As a result, its unit flyaway cost (FAC) is around US$150 million. To spread the development costs – and production base – more broadly, the
Joint Strike Fighter Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) is a development and acquisition program intended to replace a wide range of existing fighter, strike, and ground attack aircraft for the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands ...
(JSF) program enrolls eight other countries as cost- and risk-sharing partners. Altogether, the nine partner nations anticipate procuring over 3,000
Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is an American family of single-seat, single-engine, all-weather Stealth aircraft, stealth multirole combat aircraft that is intended to perform both Air superiority fighter, air superiority and attack ...
fighters at an anticipated average FAC of $80–85 million. The F-35, however, is designed to be a family of three aircraft, a
conventional take-off and landing A conventional take-off and landing (CTOL), also known as horizontal take-off and landing (HTOL) is the process whereby conventional fixed-wing aircraft (such as passenger aircraft) takeoff, take off and landing, land, involving the use of runways ...
(CTOL) fighter, a
short take-off and vertical landing A short take-off and vertical landing aircraft (STOVL aircraft) is a fixed-wing aircraft that is able to take off from a short runway (or take off vertically if it does not have a heavy payload) and land vertically (i.e. with no runway). The ...
(STOVL) fighter, and a Catapult Assisted Take Off But Arrested Recovery (CATOBAR) fighter, each of which has a different unit price and slightly varying specifications in terms of fuel capacity (and therefore range), size and
payload Payload is the object or the entity which is being carried by an aircraft or launch vehicle. Sometimes payload also refers to the carrying capacity of an aircraft or launch vehicle, usually measured in terms of weight. Depending on the nature of ...
. Other countries have initiated fifth-generation fighter development projects. In December 2010, it was discovered that China is developing the 5th generation fighter
Chengdu J-20 The Chengdu J-20 (), also known as ''Mighty Dragon'' (), is a twinjet all-weather stealth fighter aircraft developed by China's Chengdu Aerospace Corporation for the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF). The J-20 is designed as an air ...
. The J-20 took its maiden flight in January 2011. The
Shenyang FC-31 The Shenyang FC-31 Gyrfalcon ( zh, s=鹘鹰, p=Gǔ yīng), also known as the J-31 is a Chinese prototype mid-sized twinjet 5th-generation fighter aircraft developed by Shenyang Aircraft Corporation (SAC). The official nickname published by SA ...
took its maiden flight on 31 October 2012, and developed a carrier-based version based on Chinese aircraft carriers.
United Aircraft Corporation , former_name = OJSC United Aircraft Corporation (2006–2015) , type = Public, PJSC , traded_as = , industry = Aerospace, defense , predecessor = Ilyushin, Irkut, Mikoyan, Sukhoi, Tupolev, Yakovlev , founded = , founder = Vladimir P ...
with Russia's
Mikoyan LMFS Russian Aircraft Corporation "MiG" (russian: Российская самолётостроительная корпорация „МиГ“, Rossiyskaya samolyotostroitel'naya korporatsiya "MiG"), commonly known as Mikoyan and MiG, was a Russi ...
and
Sukhoi Su-75 Checkmate The Sukhoi Su-75 Checkmate (russian: Сухой Су-75; LTS, short for Light Tactical Aircraft in Russian) is a single-engine, stealth fighter aircraft under development by Sukhoi for export and for the Russian Aerospace Forces. The Sukhoi Des ...
plan,
Sukhoi Su-57 The Sukhoi Su-57 (russian: Сухой Су-57; NATO reporting name: Felon) is a Twinjet, twin-engine stealth Multirole combat aircraft, multirole fighter aircraft developed by Sukhoi. It is the product of the PAK FA (russian: ПАК ФА, russ ...
became the first fifth-generation fighter jets in service with the Russian Aerospace Forces on 2020, and launch missiles in the
Russo-Ukrainian War The Russo-Ukrainian War; uk, російсько-українська війна, rosiisko-ukrainska viina. has been ongoing between Russia (alongside Russian separatist forces in Donbas, Russian separatists in Ukraine) and Ukraine since Feb ...
in 2022. Japan is exploring its technical feasibility to produce fifth-generation fighters. India is developing the
Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft The Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) is an Indian programme to develop a Fifth-generation jet fighter, fifth-generation Stealth aircraft, stealth, Multirole combat aircraft, multirole, air superiority fighter for the Indian Air Force and ...
(AMCA), a medium weight stealth fighter jet designated to enter into serial production by late 2030s. India also had initiated a joint fifth generation heavy fighter with Russia called the FGFA. May, the project is suspected to have not yielded desired progress or results for India and has been put on hold or dropped altogether. Other countries considering fielding an indigenous or semi-indigenous advanced fifth generation aircraft include South Korea, Sweden, Turkey and Pakistan.


Sixth-generation jet fighters (2020s onward)

As of November 2018, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, India, the United Kingdom and the United States have announced the development of a sixth-generation aircraft program. France and Germany will develop a joint sixth-generation fighter to replace their current fleet of
Dassault Rafale The Dassault Rafale (, literally meaning "gust of wind", and "burst of fire" in a more military sense) is a French twin-engine, canard delta wing, multirole fighter aircraft designed and built by Dassault Aviation. Equipped with a wide ran ...
s,
Eurofighter Typhoon The Eurofighter Typhoon is a European multinational twin-engine, canard delta wing, multirole fighter. The Typhoon was designed originally as an air-superiority fighter and is manufactured by a consortium of Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo ...
s, and
Panavia Tornado The Panavia Tornado is a family of twin-engine, variable-sweep wing multirole combat aircraft, jointly developed and manufactured by Italy, the United Kingdom and West Germany. There are three primary Tornado variants: the Tornado IDS (inter ...
s by 2035. The overall development will be led by a collaboration of
Dassault Dassault Group (; also GIM Dassault or Groupe Industriel Marcel Dassault SAS) is a French group of companies established in 1929 with the creation of Société des Avions Marcel Bloch (now Dassault Aviation) by Marcel Dassault, and led by son Ser ...
and
Airbus Airbus SE (; ; ; ) is a European Multinational corporation, multinational aerospace corporation. Airbus designs, manufactures and sells civil and military aerospace manufacturer, aerospace products worldwide and manufactures aircraft througho ...
, while the engines will reportedly be jointly developed by
Safran Safran S.A. is a French multinational company that designs, develops and manufactures aircraft engines, rocket engines as well as various aerospace and defense-related equipment or their components. It was formed by a merger between SNECMA and ...
and
MTU Aero Engines MTU Aero Engines AG is a German aircraft engine manufacturer. MTU develops, manufactures and provides service support for military and civil aircraft engines. MTU Aero Engines was formerly known as MTU München. History While the Munich-based en ...
.
Thales Thales of Miletus ( ; grc-gre, Θαλῆς; ) was a Greek mathematician, astronomer, statesman, and pre-Socratic philosopher from Miletus in Ionia, Asia Minor. He was one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Many, most notably Aristotle, regarded him ...
and
MBDA MBDA is a European multinational developer and manufacturer of missiles.MBDA Inc. US Division Co ...
are also seeking a stake in the project. Spain is reportedly planning to join the program in the later stages and is expected to sign a letter of intent in early 2019. Currently at the concept stage, the first
sixth-generation jet fighter A sixth-generation fighter is a conceptualized class of jet fighter aircraft design more advanced than the fifth-generation jet fighters that are currently in service and development. Several countries have announced the development of a sixth-g ...
is expected to enter service in the
United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
in 2025–30 period. The USAF seeks a new fighter for the 2030–50 period named the "Next Generation Tactical Aircraft" ("Next Gen TACAIR"). The US Navy looks to replace its
F/A-18E/F Super Hornet The Boeing F/A-18E and F/A-18F Super Hornet are twin-engine, carrier-capable, multirole fighter aircraft variants based on the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet. The F/A-18E single-seat and F/A-18F tandem-seat variants are larger and more ad ...
s beginning in 2025 with the
Next Generation Air Dominance The Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) is a United States Air Force (USAF) sixth-generation air superiority initiative with a goal of fielding a "family of systems" that is to succeed the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor. A manned fighter aircra ...
air superiority fighter... The United Kingdom's proposed stealth fighter is being developed by a European consortium called ''Team Tempest'', consisting of
BAE Systems BAE Systems plc (BAE) is a British multinational arms, security, and aerospace company based in London, England. It is the largest defence contractor in Europe, and ranked the seventh-largest in the world based on applicable 2021 revenues. ...
,
Rolls-Royce Rolls-Royce (always hyphenated) may refer to: * Rolls-Royce Limited, a British manufacturer of cars and later aero engines, founded in 1906, now defunct Automobiles * Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, the current car manufacturing company incorporated in ...
, Leonardo S.p.A. and
MBDA MBDA is a European multinational developer and manufacturer of missiles.MBDA Inc. US Division Co ...
. The aircraft is intended to enter service in 2035.


Fighter weapons

Fighters were typically armed with guns only for air to air combat up through the late 1950s, though unguided rockets for mostly air to ground use and limited air to air use were deployed in WWII. From the late 1950s forward guided missiles came into use for air to air combat. Throughout this history fighters which by surprise or maneuver attain a good firing position have achieved the kill about one third to one half the time, no matter what weapons were carried. The only major historic exception to this has been the low effectiveness shown by guided missiles in the first one to two decades of their existence. From WWI to the present, fighter aircraft have featured machine guns and automatic cannons as weapons, and they are still considered as essential back-up weapons today. The power of air-to-air guns has increased greatly over time, and has kept them relevant in the guided missile era. In WWI two rifle (approximately 0.30) caliber machine guns was the typical armament, producing a weight of fire of about per second. In WWII rifle caliber machine guns also remained common, though usually in larger numbers or supplemented with much heavier 0.50 caliber machine guns or cannons. The standard WWII American fighter armament of six 0.50-cal (12.7mm) machine guns fired a bullet weight of approximately 3.7 kg/sec (8.1 lbs/sec), at a muzzle velocity of 856 m/s (2,810 ft/s). British and German aircraft tended to use a mix of machine guns and autocannon, the latter firing explosive projectiles. Later British fighters were exclusively cannon-armed, the US were not able to produce a reliable cannon in high numbers and most fighters remained equipped only with heavy machine guns despite the US Navy pressing for a change to 20mm. Post war 20-30 mm
revolver cannon A revolver cannon is a type of autocannon, commonly used as an aircraft gun. It uses a cylinder with multiple chambers, like those of a revolver handgun, to speed up the loading-firing-ejection cycle. Some examples are also power-driven, to fur ...
and
rotary cannon A rotary cannon, rotary autocannon, rotary gun or Gatling cannon, is any large- caliber multiple-barreled automatic firearm that uses a Gatling-type rotating barrel assembly to deliver a sustained saturational direct fire at much greater ...
were introduced. The modern
M61 Vulcan The M61 Vulcan is a hydraulically, electrically, or pneumatically driven, six- barrel, air-cooled, electrically fired Gatling-style rotary cannon which fires rounds at an extremely high rate (typically 6,000 rounds per minute). The M61 and i ...
20 mm rotary cannon that is standard on current American fighters fires a projectile weight of about 10 kg/s (22 lb/s), nearly three times that of six 0.50-cal machine guns, with higher velocity of 1,052 m/s (3450 ft/s) supporting a flatter trajectory, and with exploding projectiles. Modern fighter gun systems also feature ranging radar and lead computing electronic gun sights to ease the problem of aim point to compensate for projectile drop and time of flight (target lead) in the complex three dimensional maneuvering of air-to-air combat. However, getting in position to use the guns is still a challenge. The range of guns is longer than in the past but still quite limited compared to missiles, with modern gun systems having a maximum effective range of approximately 1,000 meters. High probability of kill also requires firing to usually occur from the rear hemisphere of the target. Despite these limits, when pilots are well trained in air-to-air gunnery and these conditions are satisfied, gun systems are tactically effective and highly cost efficient. The cost of a gun firing pass is far less than firing a missile, and the projectiles are not subject to the thermal and electronic countermeasures than can sometimes defeat missiles. When the enemy can be approached to within gun range, the lethality of guns is approximately a 25% to 50% chance of "kill per firing pass". The range limitations of guns, and the desire to overcome large variations in fighter pilot skill and thus achieve higher force effectiveness, led to the development of the guided
air-to-air missile The newest and the oldest member of Rafael's Python family of AAM for comparisons, Python-5 (displayed lower-front) and Shafrir-1 (upper-back) An air-to-air missile (AAM) is a missile fired from an aircraft for the purpose of destroying a ...
. There are two main variations, heat-seeking (infrared homing), and radar guided. Radar missiles are typically several times heavier and more expensive than heat-seekers, but with longer range, greater destructive power, and ability to track through clouds. The highly successful
AIM-9 Sidewinder The AIM-9 Sidewinder (where "AIM" stands for "Air Intercept Missile") is a short-range air-to-air missile which entered service with the US Navy in 1956 and subsequently was adopted by the US Air Force in 1964. Since then the Sidewinder has prov ...
heat-seeking (infrared homing) short-range missile was developed by the
United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
in the 1950s. These small missiles are easily carried by lighter fighters, and provide effective ranges of approximately 10 to 35 km (~6 to 22 miles). Beginning with the AIM-9L in 1977, subsequent versions of Sidewinder have added
all-aspect An all-aspect air-to-air missile can track a target no matter which way the target faces relative to the missile. In other words, an all-aspect missile can be launched against a target not only in a tail-chase engagement, but also in a head-on eng ...
capability, the ability to use the lower heat of air to skin friction on the target aircraft to track from the front and sides. The latest (2003 service entry) AIM-9X also features "off-boresight" and "lock on after launch" capabilities, which allow the pilot to make a quick launch of a missile to track a target anywhere within the pilot's vision. The AIM-9X development cost was U.S. $3 billion in mid to late 1990s dollars, and 2015 per unit procurement cost is $0.6 million each. The missile weighs 85.3 kg (188 lbs), and has a maximum range of 35 km (22 miles) at higher altitudes. Like most air-to-air missiles, lower altitude range can be as limited as only about one third of maximum due to higher drag and less ability to coast downward. The effectiveness of infrared homing missiles was only 7% early in the Vietnam War, but improved to approximately 15%–40% over the course of the war. The
AIM-4 Falcon The Hughes AIM-4 Falcon was the first operational guided air-to-air missile of the United States Air Force. Development began in 1946; the weapon was first tested in 1949. The missile entered service with the USAF in 1956. Produced in both heat ...
used by the USAF had kill rates of approximately 7% and was considered a failure. The AIM-9B Sidewinder introduced later achieved 15% kill rates, and the further improved AIM-9D and J models reached 19%. The AIM-9G used in the last year of the Vietnam air war achieved 40%. Israel used almost totally guns in the 1967
Six-Day War The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states (primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, S ...
, achieving 60 kills and 10 losses. However, Israel made much more use of steadily improving heat-seeking missiles in the 1973
Yom Kippur War The Yom Kippur War, also known as the Ramadan War, the October War, the 1973 Arab–Israeli War, or the Fourth Arab–Israeli War, was an armed conflict fought from October 6 to 25, 1973 between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egy ...
. In this extensive conflict Israel scored 171 of 261 total kills with heat-seeking missiles (65.5%), 5 kills with radar guided missiles (1.9%), and 85 kills with guns (32.6%). The AIM-9L Sidewinder scored 19 kills out of 26 fired missiles (73%) in the 1982
Falklands War The Falklands War ( es, link=no, Guerra de las Malvinas) was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and its territorial de ...
. But, in a conflict against opponents using thermal countermeasures, the United States only scored 11 kills out of 48 fired (Pk = 23%) with the follow-on AIM-9M in the 1991 Gulf War. Radar guided missiles fall into two main
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 ...
types. In the historically more common
semi-active radar homing Semi-active radar homing (SARH) is a common type of missile guidance system, perhaps the most common type for longer-range Air-to-air missile, air-to-air and surface-to-air missile systems. The name refers to the fact that the missile itself is ...
case the missile homes in on radar signals transmitted from launching aircraft and reflected from the target. This has the disadvantage that the firing aircraft must maintain radar lock on the target and is thus less free to maneuver and more vulnerable to attack. A widely deployed missile of this type was the
AIM-7 Sparrow The AIM-7 Sparrow (Air Intercept Missile) is an American, medium-range semi-active radar homing air-to-air missile operated by the United States Air Force, United States Navy, and United States Marine Corps, as well as other various air forces ...
, which entered service in 1954 and was produced in improving versions until 1997. In more advanced
active radar homing Active radar homing (ARH) is a missile guidance method in which a missile contains a radar transceiver (in contrast to semi-active radar homing, which uses only a receiver) and the electronics necessary for it to find and track its target aut ...
the missile is guided to the vicinity of the target by internal data on its projected position, and then "goes active" with an internally carried small radar system to conduct terminal guidance to the target. This eliminates the requirement for the firing aircraft to maintain radar lock, and thus greatly reduces risk. A prominent example is the
AIM-120 AMRAAM The AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile, or AMRAAM (pronounced ), is an American beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile (BVRAAM) capable of all-weather day-and-night operations. It is 7 inches (18 cm) in diameter, and employs ...
, which was first fielded in 1991 as the AIM-7 replacement, and which has no firm retirement date . The current AIM-120D version has a maximum high altitude range of greater than 160 km (>99 miles), and cost approximately $2.4 million each (2016). As is typical with most other missiles, range at lower altitude may be as little as one third that of high altitude. In the Vietnam air war radar missile kill reliability was approximately 10% at shorter ranges, and even worse at longer ranges due to reduced radar return and greater time for the target aircraft to detect the incoming missile and take evasive action. At one point in the Vietnam war, the U.S. Navy fired 50
AIM-7 Sparrow The AIM-7 Sparrow (Air Intercept Missile) is an American, medium-range semi-active radar homing air-to-air missile operated by the United States Air Force, United States Navy, and United States Marine Corps, as well as other various air forces ...
radar guided missiles in a row without a hit. Between 1958 and 1982 in five wars there were 2,014 combined heat-seeking and radar guided missile firings by fighter pilots engaged in air-to-air combat, achieving 528 kills, of which 76 were radar missile kills, for a combined effectiveness of 26%. However, only four of the 76 radar missile kills were in the beyond-visual-range mode intended to be the strength of radar guided missiles. The United States invested over $10 billion in air-to-air radar missile technology from the 1950s to the early 1970s. Amortized over actual kills achieved by the U.S. and its allies, each radar guided missile kill thus cost over $130 million. The defeated enemy aircraft were for the most part older MiG-17s, −19s, and −21s, with new cost of $0.3 million to $3 million each. Thus, the radar missile investment over that period far exceeded the value of enemy aircraft destroyed, and furthermore had very little of the intended BVR effectiveness. However, continuing heavy development investment and rapidly advancing electronic technology led to significant improvement in radar missile reliabilities from the late 1970s onward. Radar guided missiles achieved 75% Pk (9 kills out of 12 shots) in operations in the Gulf War in 1991. The percentage of kills achieved by radar guided missiles also surpassed 50% of total kills for the first time by 1991. Since 1991, 20 of 61 kills worldwide have been beyond-visual-range using radar missiles. Discounting an accidental friendly fire kill, in operational use the AIM-120D (the current main American radar guided missile) has achieved 9 kills out of 16 shots for a 56% Pk. Six of these kills were BVR, out of 13 shots, for a 46% BVR Pk. Though all these kills were against less capable opponents who were not equipped with operating radar, electronic countermeasures, or a comparable weapon themselves, the BVR Pk was a significant improvement from earlier eras. However, a current concern is electronic countermeasures to radar missiles,"Can U.S. air-to-air missiles hit their targets through today's enemy electronic warfare?", Military and Aerospace Electronics, 12 April 2016, http://www.militaryaerospace.com/articles/2016/04/ew-missiles-challenge.html which are thought to be reducing the effectiveness of the AIM-120D. Some experts believe that the European Meteor missile, the Russian R-37M, and the Chinese
PL-15 The PL-15 (, NATO reporting name: CH-AA-10A) is an active radar-guided long-range air-to-air missile developed by the People's Republic of China. History The PL-15 is developed by Luoyang-based CAMA. The missile was test fired in 2011 and refer ...
are more resistant to countermeasures and more effective than the AIM-120D. Now that higher reliabilities have been achieved, both types of missiles allow the fighter pilot to often avoid the risk of the short-range dogfight, where only the more experienced and skilled fighter pilots tend to prevail, and where even the finest fighter pilot can simply get unlucky. Taking maximum advantage of complicated missile parameters in both attack and defense against competent opponents does take considerable experience and skill,Shaw, pp.45–61. but against surprised opponents lacking comparable capability and countermeasures, air-to-air missile warfare is relatively simple. By partially automating air-to-air combat and reducing reliance on gun kills mostly achieved by only a small expert fraction of fighter pilots, air-to-air missiles now serve as highly effective force multipliers.


See also

*
List of fighter aircraft This is a list of military aircraft that are primarily designed for air-to-air combat and thus does not include aircraft intended for other roles where they have some secondary air-to-air capability, such as with many ground attack aircraft. The l ...
*
Warbird A warbird is any vintage military aircraft now operated by civilian organizations and individuals, or in some instances, by historic arms of military forces, such as the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight, the RAAF Museum Historic Flight, or th ...


Notes


References


Citations


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * *Munson, Kenneth (1976). ''Fighters Attack and Training Aircraft 1914-1919'', Revised Edn, Blandford. * * * * * * * * *


External links


Fighter generations comparison chart on theaviationist.com
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