Fighter Aircraft

aircraft designed primarily to secure control of essential airspace by destroying enemy aircraft in combat. The opposition may consist of fighters of equal capability or of bombers carrying protective armament. For such purposes fighters must be capable of the highest possible performance in order to be able to outfly and outmaneuver opposing fighters. Above all, they must be armed with specialized weapons capable of hitting and destroying enemy aircraft.

Fighter airplanes have been described by a variety of labels. Early in World War I they were used as scout planes for artillery spotting, but it was quickly discovered that they could be armed and do combat with one another, shoot down enemy bombers, and conduct other tactical missions. Since that time fighters have assumed various specialized combat roles. An interceptor is a fighter whose design and armament best fit it for intercepting and defeating or routing invading fighters. A night fighter is one equipped with sophisticated radar and other instruments for navigating in unfamiliar or hostile territory at night. A day fighter is an airplane in which weight and space are saved by eliminating the special navigational equipment of the night fighter. The air supremacy, or air superiority, fighter must have long-range capability, to enable it to travel deep into enemy territory to seek out and destroy enemy fighters. Fighter-bombers fill the dual role suggested by their name.

In the days of aerial “dogfights” during World War I, light machine guns were synchronized to fire through the airplane's propeller, and by the end of the war, fighters such as the German Fokker D.VII and the French Spad were attaining speeds of 135 miles (215 km) per hour. Most of these were biplanes made of wooden frames and cloth skins, as were many of the standard interwar fighters.

During World War II all-metal monoplane fighters exceeded speeds of 450 miles (725 km) per hour and reached ceilings of 35,000 to 40,000 feet (10,700 to 12,000 m). Famous fighters of the period were the British Hurricane and Spitfire, the German Messerschmitt 109 and FW-190, the U.S. P-47 Thunderbolt and P-51 Mustang, and the Japanese Zero (AGM Type Zero). Both Allied and Axis powers put jet aircraft into production, but these became operational too late to affect the outcome of the war.

During the Korean War jet fighters, notably, the U.S. F-86 and the Soviet MiG-15, were extensively used. The U.S. F-100 and F-4; the Soviet MiG-21; and the French Mirage III saw combat service in the Middle East and in Vietnam in the 1960s and '70s.

Modern supersonic jet fighters can fly at more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) per hour. They have fast rates of climb, great maneuverability, and heavy firepower, including air-to-air missiles. The U.S. F-16 and the Soviet MiG-25 are among the most advanced jet fighters in the world.

At the speeds and altitudes at which such aircraft can operate, the problem of striking and destroying enemy aircraft becomes extremely complicated and requires an array of electronic, navigational, and computational gear. A single-seated, high-performance fighter of the 1980s might weigh as much as, and be vastly more complicated than, one of the multiengined bombers of World War II. In many cases the search and attack functions are completely automatic, the pilot's role in combat being virtually reduced to monitoring the operation of the equipment. Indeed, with modern jet-powered fighter airplanes, a point has been reached where the performance capabilities of the machine exceed the capabilities of a human pilot to control it.

See also F-4; F-16; F-100; F-104; Hurricane; MiG; Mirage; P-38; P-47; P-51; Spitfire; Zero.

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