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A fighter aircraft is a military aircraft designed primarily for attacking other aircraft, as opposed to a bomber, which is designed to attack ground targets, primarily by dropping bombs or other weapons. Fighters are comparatively small, fast, and maneuverable. Fighter aircraft are the primary means by which armed forces gain air superiority. At least since World War II, air superiority has been a crucial component of victory in most modern warfare, particularly "conventional" warfare between regular armies(as opposed to guerrilla warfare), and their acquisition and maintenance represent a very substantial proportion of military budgets in militaries that maintain modern fighter forces. Image File history File links Question_book-3. ...
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The A-10 Thunderbolt II is an American single-seat, twin-engine jet aircraft developed by Fairchild-Republic for the United States Air Force to provide close air support (CAS) of ground forces by attacking tanks, armored vehicles, and other ground targets, also providing a limited air interdiction role. ...
The North American F-86 Sabre (sometimes called the Sabrejet) was a transonic combat aircraft developed for the US Air Force. ...
P-38 redirects here. ...
The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang was an American long-range single-seat fighter aircraft that entered service with Allied air forces in the middle years of World War II. The P-51 became one of the conflicts most successful and recognizable aircraft. ...
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Military aircraft are airplanes used in warfare. ...
Flying machine redirects here. ...
For other uses, see Bomber (disambiguation). ...
For other uses, see Bomb (disambiguation). ...
Air superiority is the dominance in the air power of one side air forces of another side during a military campaign. ...
Guerrilla redirects here. ...
[edit] Introduction The word "fighter" did not become the official British term for a single seat fighter until after the First World War. In the RFC/RAF such aircraft continued to be called "scouts" into the early nineteen twenties. In the French, Italian, German and Portuguese languages the term used (and still in use) literally means "hunter", while in Russian the fighter is called "истребитель" (pronounced "istrebitel") which is literally "exterminator". The U.S. Army labeled their fighters as "pursuit" aircraft until the late nineteen forties.
Fighters were developed in response to the fledgling use of aircraft and dirigibles in World War I for reconnaissance and ground attack roles. USS Akron (ZRS-4) in flight, November 2, 1931 An airship or dirigible is a buoyant lighter-than-air aircraft that can be steered and propelled through the air. ...
“The Great War †redirects here. ...
As aerial warfare became increasingly important, so did control of the airspace. By World War II, fighters were predominantly all-metal monoplanes with wing-mounted batteries of cannons or heavy machine guns. By the end of the war, turbojets were already beginning to replace piston engines as the means of propulsion, and missiles to augment or replace guns. Aerial warfare is the use of military aircraft and other flying machines in warfare, including military airlift of cargo to further the national interests as was demonstrated in the Berlin Airlift. ...
Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki TÅjÅ Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000...
Turbojets are the simplest and oldest kind of general purpose jet engines. ...
For historical purposes, jet fighters are sometimes classified by generation. The generation terminology was initiated by Russian defense parlance in referring to the F-35 Lightning II as a "fifth-generation" plane.[citation needed] A fighter aircraft is a military aircraft designed primarily for attacking other aircraft, as opposed to a bomber, which is designed to attack ground targets, primarily by dropping bombs. ...
The F-35 Lightning II is a single-seat, single-engine, stealth-capable military strike fighter, a multi-role aircraft that can perform close air support, tactical bombing, and air-to-air combat. ...
Modern jet fighters are predominantly powered by one or two turbofan engines, armed primarily with missiles (from as few as two on some lightweight day fighters to as many as eight to ten on air superiority fighters like the Su-37 Flanker or F-15 Eagle), with a cannon as backup armament (typically between 20 and 30mm in calibre), and equipped with a radar as the primary method of target acquisition. A day fighter is a fighter aircraft equipped only to fight during the day. ...
The Sukhoi Su-37 (NATO designation: Flanker-F) is a Russian multi-role jet fighter aircraft. ...
F-15 redirects here. ...
The word caliber (American English) or calibre (British English) comes from the Italian calibro, itself from the Arabic quâlib, meaning mould. ...
[edit] Piston engine fighters
[edit] World War I The word “fighter” was first used to describe a two seater aircraft, with sufficient lift to carry a machine gun and its operator as well as the pilot. The first such “fighters” belonged to the “gunbus” series of experimental gun carriers of the British Vickers company which culminated in the Vickers F.B.5 Gunbus of 1914. The main drawback of this type of aircraft was its lack of speed. It was quickly realised that an aircraft intended to destroy its kind in the air needed at least to be fast enough to catch its quarry. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (2338x1397, 183 KB)A Sopwith Camel 2F1 bi-plane at the Imperial War Museum in London. ...
Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (2338x1397, 183 KB)A Sopwith Camel 2F1 bi-plane at the Imperial War Museum in London. ...
The Sopwith Camel Scout is a British First World War single-seat fighter aircraft that was famous for its maneuverability. ...
The Imperial War Museum is a museum in London featuring military vehicles, weapons, war memorabilia, a library, a photographic archive, and an art collection of 20th century and later conflicts, especially those involving Britain, and the British Empire. ...
Vickers was a famous name in British engineering that existed through many companies from 1828 until 2004. ...
The Vickers F.B.5 Gunbus was the first operational British aircraft purpose-built for air-to-air combat, making it debatably the worlds first true fighter aircraft. ...
Fortunately another type of military aircraft already existed, which was to form the basis for an effective "fighter" in the modern sense of the word. It was based on the small fast aircraft developed before the war for such air races as the Gordon Bennett and Schneider trophies. The military scout aeroplane was not initially expected to be able to carry serious armament, but to rely on its speed to be able to reach the location it was required to “scout” or reconnoitre and return quickly to report – all the time making a difficult target for AA artillery or enemy gun-carrying aircraft. British “scout” aircraft in this sense included the Sopwith Tabloid and Bristol Scout – French equivalents included the light, fast Morane-Saulnier N. “Flak†redirects here. ...
The Sopwith Tabloid was a biplane sports aircraft, one of the first to be built by the Sopwith Aviation Company. ...
The Bristol Scout was a simple, single seat, rotary-radial engined biplane that functioned as one of the very first UK-built and designed fighter aircraft for the British armed forces in the first two years of World War I, even though it was originially intended to be a sporting...
RFC Morane-Saulnier Type N Bullet. ...
In practice, after the actual commencement of the war the pilots of small scout aircraft armed themselves with pistols, carbines and an assortment of improvised weapons with which to attack enemy aircraft – proving to be as successful in their efforts as specifically designed “fighter” aircraft.
It was inevitable that sooner or later means of effectively arming “scouts” would be devised. One method was to build a “pusher” scout such as the Airco DH.2, with the propeller behind the pilot. The main drawback was that the high drag of a pusher type's tail structure meant that it was bound to be slower than an otherwise similar tractor aircraft. The other was to mount the machine gun armament outside the arc of the propeller. Given the tendency of early machine guns to jam (and hence the need for the pilot to have access to the gun’s breech) as well as determining the aiming point, this was a stopgap solution at best. Despite this, a machine gun firing over the propeller arc was to remain in service from 1915 (Nieuport 11) until 1918 (Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5 with its purpose built Foster mounting). A British WWI-era F.E.2b pusher. ...
The Airco DH.2 was a single-seat biplane pusher aircraft which operated as a fighter during the First World War. ...
The Nieuport 11 was designed in response to the Fokker Scourge of 1915. ...
The Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5 was a British biplane fighter aircraft of the First World War. ...
In early 1916 Sergeant Foster of No. ...
So clear was the need to arm a tractor scout with a forward firing gun whose bullets actually passed through the propeller arc that inventors were busy trying various methods in both France and Germany. Hanz Schneider had patented a device before the war to interrupt the machine gun's stream of bullets (by preventing it from firing when the propeller's blade was in the way) before the war and Anthony Fokker developed this into the Interrupter gear that would make the Fokker Eindecker such a feared name over the Western Front despite it being an adaptation of an obsolete pre-war French Morane-Saulnier racing monoplane. Simultaneously, Roland Garros (the first French 'Flying ace') was also working on a Interrupter gear, which attempted to time the firing of the individual rounds similarly when the propellor wasn't in the way. Unfortunately his choice of machine gun was poor - the gas operated Hotchkiss wasn't predictable enough to be able to time the firing and as a desperation measure he fitted metal wedges to protect the propeller's blades. At the same time the RNAS was taping up the blades on its scouts so that any rounds that damaged the prop wouldn't cause it to fail before the aircraft could be landed, with the fabric from the tape hopefully holding the blade together. Schneider may refer to: Schneider (surname) for the name and people Schneider, Indiana, a small town in the United States. ...
Anton Herman Gerard Anthony Fokker (April 6, 1890 – December 23, 1939), was born in Kediri (Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia) and became a Dutch aircraft manufacturer. ...
Damaged propeller from a Sopwith Baby aircraft circa 1916/17 with evidence of bulletholes from a machine gun fired behind the propeller without an Interruptor. ...
The Fokker Eindecker was a German First World War monoplane single-seat fighter aircraft designed by Dutch engineer Anthony Fokker. ...
Western Front was a term used during the First and Second World Wars to describe the contested armed frontier between lands controlled by Germany to the East and the Allies to the West. ...
Aéroplanes Morane-Saulnier is a French aircraft manufacturer formed by Raymond Saulnier and the Morane Brothers in October 1911. ...
This article does not cite any references or sources. ...
The term synchronizer can mean more than one thing. ...
The success of the Eindecker started a cycle of improvement among the combatants, building ever more efficient single seat fighters. The Albatros D.I of late 1916 set the classic pattern followed by almost all such aircraft for about twenty years. Like the D.I, they were biplanes (only very occasionally monoplanes, or triplanes). The strong box structure of the biplane wing allowed for a rigid wing that afforded accurate lateral control, essential for fighter-type maneuvers. They had a single crew member, who flew the aircraft and also operated its armament. They were armed with two synchronised Maxim-type machine guns, which were much easier to synchronise than other types – firing through the propeller arc. The gun breeches were typically right in front of the pilot’s face. This had obvious implications in case of accidents, but enabled jams (to which Maxim-type machine guns always remained liable) to be cleared in flight and made aiming them much easier. The Albatros D I was a German fighter airplane used during World War I. It was designed by Thelen, Schubert and Gnädig, in an attempt to create an airplane superior to the then-dominant Nieuport 11 (Bébé) and Airco D.H.2. ...
Reproduction of a Sopwith Camel biplane flown by Lt. ...
A monoplane is an aircraft with one main set of wing surfaces, in contrast to a biplane or triplane. ...
A triplane is a fixed-wing aircraft equipped with three sets of wings, each roughly the same size and mounted one above the other. ...
An early Maxim gun in operation with the Royal Navy 1895 . ...
Notable aircraft: (with year of introduction) Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (3008x2000, 3134 KB) Summary Nachbau der Fokker DR1 auf der ILA 2006. ...
Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (3008x2000, 3134 KB) Summary Nachbau der Fokker DR1 auf der ILA 2006. ...
The Fokker Dr. I Dreidecker (triplane) was a World War I fighter aircraft designed by Reinhold Platz and built by the company led by Anthony Fokker. ...
ILA2004 display area The Berlin Air Show ILA2006 belongs to the most important aerospace trade-fairs in the world and takes place in Berlin, Germany. ...
Red Baron may refer to: Manfred von Richthofen, World War I flying ace Red Baron, a popular computer game Red Baron, an arcade game by Atari. ...
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The Vickers F.B.5 Gunbus was the first operational British aircraft purpose-built for air-to-air combat, making it debatably the worlds first true fighter aircraft. ...
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The Fokker Eindecker was a German First World War monoplane single-seat fighter aircraft designed by Dutch engineer Anthony Fokker. ...
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The Nieuport 11 was designed in response to the Fokker Scourge of 1915. ...
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The Airco DH.2 was a single-seat biplane pusher aircraft which operated as a fighter during the First World War. ...
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The Albatros D.III was a highly successful single seat, biplane fighter aircraft used by the Imperial German Army Air Service (Luftstreitkräfte) and the Austro-Hungarian Air Service (Luftfahrtruppen) during the First World War. ...
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The Nieuport 17 was a biplane fighter aircraft manufactured by Nieuport, and prominent during the World War I era. ...
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The Fokker Dr. I Dreidecker (triplane) was a World War I fighter aircraft designed by Reinhold Platz and built by the company led by Anthony Fokker. ...
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The SPAD S.XIII was a French biplane fighter aircraft of World War I, developed by Société Pour LAviation et ses Dérivés (SPAD) from the earlier highly successful SPAD S.VII. It was one of the most capable fighters of the war, and one of the...
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The Nieuport 28 (N.28C-1) was a French biplane fighter aircraft flown during World War I, built by Nieuport and designed by Gustave Delage. ...
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The Sopwith Camel Scout is a British First World War single-seat fighter aircraft that was famous for its maneuverability. ...
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The Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5 was a British biplane fighter aircraft of the First World War. ...
Image File history File links Flag_of_Germany. ...
Fokker D.VII Fokker D.VII Fokker D.VII preserved in the Deutsches Museum The Fokker D.VII was a late World War I fighter aircraft designed by Reinhold Platz at the Fokker company. ...
[edit] 1919-1938 Fighter development slowed between the wars, the most significant change coming late in the period, when the classic WWI type machines started to give way to metal monocoque or semi-monocoque monoplanes, with cantilever wing structures. Given limited defense budgets, air forces tended to be conservative in their aircraft purchases, and biplanes remained popular. Designs such as the Gloster Gladiator, Fiat CR.42, and Polikarpov I-15 were common even in the late 1930s. Up until the mid-1930s, the vast majority of fighter aircraft remained fabric- (or partially fabric-) covered biplanes. Boeing P-26 Peashooters were introduced into the Army Air Corps in 1933. ...
Boeing P-26 Peashooters were introduced into the Army Air Corps in 1933. ...
The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA, TYO: 7661) is a major aerospace and defense corporation, originally founded by William Edward Boeing. ...
The Boeing P-26, nicknamed the Peashooter, was the first all-metal production fighter aircraft and the first pursuit monoplane used by the United States Army Air Corps. ...
Monocoque (French for single shell) is a construction technique that uses the external skin of an object to support some or most of the load on the structure. ...
A schematic image of two cantilevers. ...
Gloster Gladiator photographed in England in 2002 The Gloster Gladiator was a biplane fighter, used by the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy, as well as a number of other air forces, during World War II. The aircraft had a top speed of around 414 km/h. ...
Fiat CR.42 Falco The Fiat CR.42 Falco (Falcon) was a biplane which served as the primary fighter aircraft of Italys Regia Aeronautica at the outbreak of World War II. // Development The epitome of a biplane fighter, CR.42 represented evolution of the Italian designs starting with Fiat...
The Polikarpov I-15 Чайка Seagull was a Soviet fighter aircraft that first flew in October 1933 by V.P.Chkalov. ...
Fighter armament eventually began to be mounted in the wings, outside the arc of the propeller, though most designs retained two synchronized machine-guns above the engine (which were considered more accurate). Rifle-caliber guns were the norm, with .50 caliber (12.7mm) MGs and 20mm cannons deemed "overkill." Considering that many aircraft were constructed similarly to WWI designs (albeit with aluminum frames), it was not considered unreasonable to use WWI-style armament to counter them. There was insufficient aerial combat during most of the period to disprove this notion. Aluminum is a soft and lightweight metal with a dull silvery appearance, due to a thin layer of oxidation that forms quickly when it is exposed to air. ...
The Rotary engine quickly disappeared, replaced by the stationary Radial engine. Aircraft engines increased in power several-fold over the period, going from a typical 180 HP in the 1918 Fokker D.VII to 900 HP in the 1938 Curtiss P-36. 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 in-line units. Radial designs did not require a separate (vulnerable) cooling system, but had increased drag. This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...
The radial engine is an internal combustion engine configuration in which the cylinders point outward from a central crankshaft like the spokes on a wheel. ...
Fokker D.VII Fokker D.VII Fokker D.VII preserved in the Deutsches Museum The Fokker D.VII was a late World War I fighter aircraft designed by Reinhold Platz at the Fokker company. ...
The Curtiss P-36 Hawk, or as it was originally called, the Curtiss Hawk Model 75, was a US fighter aircraft of WW2. ...
Some air forces dabbled with "heavy fighters" (called "destroyers" by the Germans). These were larger aircraft, sometimes adaptations of light or medium bomber types, and usually with two engines. Such designs typically had greater internal fuel capacity (thus, longer range) and heavier armament than their single-engine counterparts. In combat, they proved ungainly and vulnerable to more nimble single-engine fighters. For a particular Air Force, see List of air forces. ...
A light bomber is a military bomber aircraft which, when compared to other bombers, is relatively small and fast; such aircraft will probably not carry more than one ton of ordnance. ...
A medium bomber is a bomber aircraft designed to operate with medium bombloads over medium distances; primarily to distinguish them from the much larger heavy bombers and smaller light bombers. ...
The primary driver of fighter innovation, right up to the period of rapid rearmament in the late thirties, were not military budgets, but civilian aircraft races. Aircraft designed for these races pioneered innovations like streamlining and more powerful engines that would find their way into the fighters of World War II.
At the very end of the inter-war period came the Spanish Civil War. This was just the opportunity the German Luftwaffe, Italian Regia Aeronautica, and Soviet Red Air Force needed to test their latest aircraft designs. Each party sent several aircraft to back their side in the conflict. In the dogfights over Spain, the latest Messerschmitt fighters (Bf-109) did well, as did the Soviet Polikarpov I-16. The German design had considerable room for development, however, and the lessons learned in Spain led to greatly improved models used in World War II. The Russians, whose side lost in the conflict, nonetheless determined that their planes were sufficient for their immediate needs. I-16s were later slaughtered en masse by improved German models in Operation Barbarossa. For their part, the Italians were satisfied with the performance of their Fiat CR.42 biplanes, and being short on funds, continued with this design even though it was borderline obsolete. Not to be confused with the Spanish Civil War of 1820-1823. ...
The Deutsche Luftwaffe or (German: air force, IPA: ) is the commonly used term for the German air force. ...
Insignia applied with a decal on the tail of the Règia Aeronautica aircraft (reconstruction). ...
Soviet Air Force, also known under the abbreviation VVS, transliterated from Russian: ВВС, Военно-воздушные силы (Voenno-Vozdushnye Sily), formed the official designation of the airforce of the Soviet Union. ...
(Bf 109 was the official Reichsluftfahrtministerium designation, though some late-war aircraft actually carried the Me 109 designation stamped onto their aircraft type plates. ...
Polikarpov I-16 at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2003 The Polikarpov I-16 was an advanced Soviet fighter aircraft when it was introduced in the mid-1930s, and it formed the backbone of the Soviet Air Force at the beginning of World War II. The diminutive fighter prominently featured in the...
Combatants Germany Romania Finland Italy Hungary Slovakia Soviet Union Commanders Adolf Hitler Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb Fedor von Bock Gerd von Rundstedt Heinz Guderian Günther von Kluge Franz Halder Ion Antonescu C.G.E. Mannerheim Giovanni Messe, CSIR Italo Garibaldi, ARMIR Iosef Stalin Kliment Voroshilov Semyon Timoshenko Fyodor Kuznetsov...
Fiat CR.42 Falco The Fiat CR.42 Falco (Falcon) was a biplane which served as the primary fighter aircraft of Italys Regia Aeronautica at the outbreak of World War II. // Development The epitome of a biplane fighter, CR.42 represented evolution of the Italian designs starting with Fiat...
Notable aircraft:
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To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...
Image File history File links Flag_of_Italy. ...
Fiat CR.42 Falco The Fiat CR.42 Falco (Falcon) was a biplane which served as the primary fighter aircraft of Italys Regia Aeronautica at the outbreak of World War II. // Development The epitome of a biplane fighter, CR.42 represented evolution of the Italian designs starting with Fiat...
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Svenska Aero Jaktfalken (Gyrfalcon) was a Swedish biplane fighter, constructed in the late 1920s. ...
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General History The Bristol Bulldog was a Royal Air Force (RAF) single-seat biplane fighter designed during the 1920s by the Bristol Aeroplane Company, with over three hundred Bulldogs produced, that arguably became the most famous aircraft during the RAFs inter-war period. ...
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Gloster Gladiator photographed in England in 2002 The Gloster Gladiator was a biplane fighter, used by the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy, as well as a number of other air forces, during World War II. The aircraft had a top speed of around 414 km/h. ...
Image File history File links Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom. ...
The Hawker Fury was a biplane fighter design used by the RAF in the 1930s. ...
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Boeing P-12 with Captain Ira Eaker The Boeing P-12 was an American pursuit aircraft that was operated by the United States Army Air Corps. ...
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The Mitsubishi A5M was the worlds first monoplane shipboard fighter and the direct ancestor of the famous Mitsubishi A6M Zero. The Allied code-name was Claude; the Japanese Navy designation was Type 96 carrier-based fighter (九六式艦上戦闘機). ...
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Fokker D.XXI Fokker D XXI planes in the Finnish air force during WWII. The Fokker D.XXI fighter was designed in 1935 for use by the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army (KNIL) air service. ...
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The PZL P.11 was a Polish fighter aircraft, designed in early-1930s by PZL in Warsaw. ...
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Polikarpov I-16 at EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2003 The Polikarpov I-16 was an advanced Soviet fighter aircraft when it was introduced in the mid-1930s, and it formed the backbone of the Soviet Air Force at the beginning of World War II. The diminutive fighter prominently featured in the...
Image File history File links Flag_of_the_United_Kingdom. ...
The Hawker Hurricane was a British single-seat fighter aircraft designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd. ...
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The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA, TYO: 7661) is a major aerospace and defense corporation, originally founded by William Edward Boeing. ...
The Boeing P-26, nicknamed the Peashooter, was the first all-metal production fighter aircraft and the first pursuit monoplane used by the United States Army Air Corps. ...
Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ...
The Brewster F2A Buffalo was an American fighter plane which saw limited service during World War II. In 1939, the F2A became the first monoplane fighter aircraft used by the US Navy. ...
[edit] World War II Aerial combat formed an important part of World War II military doctrine. The ability of aircraft to locate, harass, and interdict ground forces was an instrumental part of the German combined-arms doctrine, and their inability to seize air superiority over Britain rendered an invasion infeasible. Erwin Rommel 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 against modern European troops, under the same handicaps and with the same chances of success." Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ...
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Combatants Poland Germany Soviet Union Slovakia Commanders Edward Rydz-Śmigły Fedor von Bock (Army Group North) Gerd von Rundstedt (Army Group South) Ferdinand Čatloš (Field Army Bernolak) Strength 39 divisions 16 brigades 4,300 guns 880 tanks 400 aircraft Total: 1,000,000[1] 56 German divisions, 33+ Soviet...
The PZL P.11 was a Polish fighter aircraft, designed in early-1930s by PZL in Warsaw. ...
is the 244th day of the year (245th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...
A Flight Lieutenants sleeve/shoulder insignia Flight Lieutenant (abbreviated as Flt Lt and pronounced as flight lef-tenant, see Lieutenant) is a junior commissioned rank in the Royal Air Force and the air forces of many Commonwealth countries. ...
The Heinkel He 111 was the primary Luftwaffe medium bomber during the early stages of World War II, and is perhaps the most obvious symbol of the German side of the Battle of Britain. ...
For other uses, see Warsaw (disambiguation) and Warszawa (disambiguation). ...
Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (3367x2112, 2695 KB) Supermarine Spitfire XVI at Duxford, September 2006. ...
Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (3367x2112, 2695 KB) Supermarine Spitfire XVI at Duxford, September 2006. ...
The Supermarine Spitfire was a British single-seat fighter, which was used by the Royal Air Force and many other Allied countries during the Second World War, and into the 1950s. ...
Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel ( ) (15 November 1891 – 14 October 1944) was perhaps the most famous German field marshal of World War II. He was the commander of the Deutsches Afrika Korps and also became known by the nickname The Desert Fox (Wüstenfuchs, ) for the skillful military campaigns he waged...
This was the era of the fast, monoplane interceptor. The older biplanes, some of which (see Fiat CR.42) were quite maneuverable, were also too slow to compete and were phased out. Initial battles in 1939, such as the Soviet-Japanese Battle of Khalkhyn Gol (technically not part of WWII, but still of strategic importance to the conflict) and the German invasion of Poland were too brief to provide much feedback to the participants. The Battle of France gave the Germans ample opportunity to encounter British and French aircraft in combat, which overall went very well for the Luftwaffe. The Soviets got their noses bloodied by the outnumbered Finns (see Finnish Air Force) in the Winter War, with poor doctrine and training hampering the large Soviet formations.[citation needed] Fiat CR.42 Falco The Fiat CR.42 Falco (Falcon) was a biplane which served as the primary fighter aircraft of Italys Regia Aeronautica at the outbreak of World War II. // Development The epitome of a biplane fighter, CR.42 represented evolution of the Italian designs starting with Fiat...
For the Soviet Unions military action against Poland under the same alliance, see Soviet invasion of Poland (1939). ...
Combatants France United Kingdom Canada Czechoslovakia Poland Belgium Netherlands Luxembourg Germany Italy Commanders Maurice Gamelin, Maxime Weygand Lord Gort (British Expeditionary Force) Leopold III H.G. Winkelman Gerd von Rundstedt (Army Group A) Fedor von Bock (Army Group B) Wilhelm von Leeb (Army Group C) H.R.H. Umberto di...
The Deutsche Luftwaffe or (German: air force, IPA: ) is the commonly used term for the German air force. ...
The Finnish Air Force (FAF) (Finnish: Ilmavoimat) is one of the branches of the Finnish Defence Forces. ...
Combatants Finland Soviet Union Commanders Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim Kliment Voroshilov Semyon Timoshenko Strength 250,000 men 30 tanks 130 aircraft[1][2] 1,000,000 men 6,541 tanks [3] 3,800 aircraft[4][5] Casualties 26,662 dead 39,886 wounded 1,000 captured[6] 126,875 dead...
The Battle of Britain pitted a very capable Royal Air Force against the veteran Luftwaffe pilots, some of whom had combat experience in Spain. The result was a victory for the British, with lessons learned on both sides. British fighters tore apart the lightly-armed German bombers (especially the Stuka dive-bombers), while the Messerschmitt Bf-110 was finally revealed as a failed concept and relegated to night-fighter and fighter-bomber roles. This article is about the World War Two battle. ...
RAF redirects here. ...
The Deutsche Luftwaffe or (German: air force, IPA: ) is the commonly used term for the German air force. ...
Junkers Ju 87 Dive-Bombers The Junkers Ju 87 or Stuka was the most famous Sturzkampfflugzeug (German dive bomber) in World War II, instantly recognisable by its inverted gull-wings and fixed undercarriage. ...
The Messerschmitt Bf110 (later Me110) was a twin-engine heavy fighter in the service of the Luftwaffe during World War II. History Based around the concept of the long-range Zerstörer or Destroyer Fighter the Bf110 enjoyed some success in the Polish and French campaigns. ...
Operation Barbarossa showed that strategic surprise made Soviet preparations woefully inadequate, and Red Air Force command had rendered any lessons learned from previous experience in Spain and Finland virtually useless. The Axis were able to destroy large numbers of the Red Air Force aircraft on the ground, and in one-sided dogfights in the first few days. However, by winter 1941 the Red Air Force was able to put together a cohesive air defence of Moscow, successfully interdict attacks on Leningrad and begin production of new aircraft types in the relocated semi-built factories in the Urals, Siberia, Central Asia and the Caucasus to replace the aging designs with advanced monoplane fighters such as the Yak-1, Yak-3, LaGG-3, and Mig-3) to wrest air superiority from the Luftwaffe. From 1942 significant numbers of British, and later US, fighter aircraft were also sent to aid the Soviet war effort, with the P-39 proving particularly effective in the lower altitude combat typical of the Eastern Front. From 1942 the Eastern Front became the largest area of fighter aircraft use in the World, used in all the roles typical of the period, including close air support, interdiction, escort and interception roles. Some aircraft were armed with weapons as large as 45mm cannon, and the Germans began installing additional smaller cannon in under-wing pods to assist with ground-attack missions. Combatants Germany Romania Finland Italy Hungary Slovakia Soviet Union Commanders Adolf Hitler Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb Fedor von Bock Gerd von Rundstedt Heinz Guderian Günther von Kluge Franz Halder Ion Antonescu C.G.E. Mannerheim Giovanni Messe, CSIR Italo Garibaldi, ARMIR Iosef Stalin Kliment Voroshilov Semyon Timoshenko Fyodor Kuznetsov...
Soviet Air Force, also known under the abbreviation VVS, transliterated from Russian: ВВС, Военно-воздушные силы (Voenno-Vozdushnye Sily), formed the official designation of the airforce of the Soviet Union. ...
The Yakovlev Yak-1 was a World War II Soviet fighter aircraft and the first among the wars many successful Yakovlev fighters. ...
The Yak-3 fighter The Yakovlev Yak-3 (Russian language: Як-3) was a World War II Soviet fighter aircraft regarded as one of the best fighters of the war. ...
The Lavochkin-Gorbunov-Goudkov 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 Soviet Air Force at the time of Germanys attempted...
The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3 (МикоÑн-Гуревич МиГ-3) was a Soviet fighter aircraft of World War II. It was a development of the MiG-1 in an attempt to curb some of that aircrafts handling problems. ...
Eastern Front may refer to one of the following. ...
Eventually, the Allies developed advanced piston-engined fighters such as the P-47, P-51 and improved Spitfires that simply overwhelmed their German opposition. Despite having jets and even a rocket-powered interceptor (see Me-163), the Germans were swamped by superior numbers. The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, or Jug as it was known, was one of the main US Army Air Force (USAAF) fighters of World War II. The P-47 was a big, rugged, overbuilt aircraft that was effective in air combat but proved particularly useful as a fighter-bomber. ...
The North American P-51 Mustang was a successful long range fighter aircraft which set new standards of excellence and performance when it entered service in the middle years of World War II and is still regarded as one of the very best piston-engined fighters ever made. ...
The term Spitfire can refer to: a euphemistic translation of Cacafuego, a Spanish treasure galleon captured by Sir Francis Drake, a warplane, see Supermarine Spitfire a ship, see HMS Spitfire a movie from 1934, see Spitfire (1934) The US title of the British 1942 film The First of the Few. ...
The Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet was the only operational rocket fighter aircraft. ...
In the Pacific Theater, the experienced Japanese used their latest A6M Zero to clear the skies of all opposition. Caught off-guard, the Allied air forces (often flying obsolete aircraft, as the Japanese were not deemed as dangerous as the Germans) were driven back until the Japanese became overextended. Newer Allied fighter models were faster and better-armed than the Japanese fighters, and improved tactics (see Thach Weave) helped counter the nimble Zero. Japanese industry was not up to the task of creating fighter designs equal to the latest Western models, and they were largely driven from the skies by mid-1944. The Pacific Ocean theater was one of four major theaters of the Pacific War, between 1941 and 1945. ...
The Mitsubishi A6M Zero (A for fighter, 6th model, M for Mitsubishi) was a lightweight, carrier-based fighter aircraft employed by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service from 1940 to 1945. ...
An example of the Thach Weave The Thach Weave was an aerial combat tactic developed by naval aviator John S. Thach of the United States Navy early during World War II. Thach had heard of the Japanese Mitsubishi Zeros extraordinary maneuverability and climb rate before he ever experienced it...
Piston-engine power increased considerably during the war. The Curtiss P-36 "Hawk" had a 900 HP Radial engine but was soon redesigned as the P-40 "Warhawk" with an 1100 HP in-line engine. By 1943, the latest P-40N had a 1300 HP Allison engine. At war's end, the Ta 152 German interceptor could achieve over 2000 HP with MW-50 (Methanol-Water injection) and American P-51s had a similar amount of power. The Curtiss P-36 Hawk, or as it was originally called, the Curtiss Hawk Model 75, was a US fighter aircraft of WW2. ...
The radial engine is an internal combustion engine configuration in which the cylinders point outward from a central crankshaft like the spokes on a wheel. ...
The Curtiss P-40 was a US single-engine, single-seat, low-wing, all-metal fighter and ground attack aircraft which first flew in 1938, and was used in great numbers in World War II. It was a direct adaptation of the existing P-36 airframe to enable mass production...
Allison, which may come from a medieval Norman nickname for Alice, meaning noble type, or from the Irish name Iseult, meaning fair lady. Look up Allison in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
The Focke-Wulf Ta 152 was a WW2 Luftwaffe high-altitude interceptor fighter. ...
MW 50 was a 50-50 mixture of methanol and water (thus the name) that was sprayed into the supercharger of German aircraft engines primarily for its anti-detonant effect, allowing the use of increased boost pressures. ...
Methanol, also known as methyl alcohol, carbinol, wood alcohol, wood naphtha or wood spirits, is a chemical compound with chemical formula CH3OH (often abbreviated MeOH). ...
The North American P-51 Mustang was a successful long range fighter aircraft which set new standards of excellence and performance when it entered service in the middle years of World War II and is still regarded as one of the very best piston-engined fighters ever made. ...
The first jet-powered designs became operational in 1944, and clearly outperformed their piston-engined counterparts. New designs such as the Messerschmitt Me 262 and Gloster Meteor demonstrated the effectiveness of the new propulsion system. Many of these fighters could do over 400 mph (600 km/h) in level flight, and were fast enough in a dive that they started encountering the transonic buffeting experienced near the speed of sound, occasionally breaking up in flight due to the heavy load placed on an aircraft near the so-called "sound barrier". Dive brakes were developed late in World War II to minimise these problems and restore control to pilots. The Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe (German: Swallow) was the worlds first operational turbojet fighter aircraft. ...
The Gloster Meteor was the first British jet fighter and the Allies first operational jet. ...
Dive brakes are meant to slow down an aircraft when in a dive. ...
Armament became a priority once it became apparent that newer stressed-skin monoplane fighters could not be easily shot down with rifle-caliber machine guns. The Germans, with experience from the Spanish Civil War put 20mm cannon on their Bf-109 and Bf-110 models. The British soon followed suit, putting cannons in the wings of Hawker Hurricanes and Supermarine Spitfires. The Americans, lacking a native cannon design, instead chose to place multiple .50 caliber (12.7mm) MGs on their fighters. Armaments continued to increase, with the German ME-262 jet having four 30mm cannons in the nose. Cannon fired explosive shells, and could blast a hole in an enemy aircraft rather than relying on kinetic energy from a solid bullet striking a critical subsystem (fuel line, hydraulics, control cable, pilot, etc.). A debate existed over the merits of high rate-of-fire machine guns versus slower-firing, but more devastating, cannon. In mechanical engineering, stressed skin is a type of rigid construction, intermediate between monocoque and a rigid frame with a non-loaded covering. ...
Not to be confused with the Spanish Civil War of 1820-1823. ...
(Bf 109 was the official Reichsluftfahrtministerium designation, though some late-war aircraft actually carried the Me 109 designation stamped onto their aircraft type plates. ...
The Messerschmitt Bf110 (later Me110) was a twin-engine heavy fighter in the service of the Luftwaffe during World War II. History Based around the concept of the long-range Zerstörer or Destroyer Fighter the Bf110 enjoyed some success in the Polish and French campaigns. ...
The Hawker Hurricane is a fighter design from the 1930s which was used extensively by the Royal Air Force during the Battle of Britain. ...
The still unpainted Spitfire protoype, K5054, shortly before its first flight The Supermarine Spitfire was a single-seat fighter used by the RAF and many Allied countries in World War II. Produced by Supermarine, the Spitfire was designed by R.J. Mitchell, who continued to refine it until his death...
The Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe (Swallow) was the first operational jet powered aircraft. ...
As the war progressed, use of drop tanks became common. This made the heavy twin-engine fighter designs redundant, as single-engine fighters could now cover a similar distance. Extra fuel was carried in lightweight aluminum tanks below the aircraft, and the tanks were discarded when empty. Such innovations allowed American fighter cover to range over Germany and Japan by 1944. Drop tanks on a F-16 Fighting Falcon. ...
With the increasing need for Close air support on the battlefield, fighters were increasingly fitted with bomb racks and used as fighter-bombers. Some designs, such as the German FW-190, proved extraordinarily capable in this role -- though the designer (Kurt Tank) had designed it as a pure interceptor. Because an aircraft's lift is derived from the upper surface of the wing, the lower surface can easily be festooned with a variety of rockets, bombs, and other ordnance. This increases drag, and thus the performance of the fighter is lessened, but once the ordnance is delivered (or jettisoned), the aircraft is again a fully capable fighter aircraft. Command staff had the freedom to designate a particular air group as air superiority or ground-attack as need occasioned in many cases. An Apache attack helicopter provides close air support to United States Army soldiers patrolling the Tigris River southeast of Baghdad, Iraq during the Iraq War. ...
Focke-Wulf Fw 190A in flight. ...
Kurt Waldemar Tank, 1944. ...
Radar, invented shortly prior to World War II, was fitted to some fighters, such as the Messerschmitt Bf 110, F6F Hellcat and Northrop P-61 Black Widow to enable them to locate targets at night. The Germans developed several night-fighter types as they were under constant night bombardment by British Bomber Command. The British, in turn, refined their own designs to counter the Germans. Since the radar of the era was fairly primitive and difficult to use properly, larger 2-3 seat aircraft were commonly adapted to this role (with dedicated Radar Operator). The Messerschmitt Bf 110 (called an M.E. One-Ten by American pilots) was a twin-engine heavy fighter (Zerstörer - German for Destroyer) in the service of the Luftwaffe during World War II. Later in the war it was changed to fighter-bomber (JagdBomber-Jabo) and night fighter operations...
The Grumman F6F Hellcat was a fighter plane descended from the earlier F4F Wildcat, but was a completely new design sharing only a familial resemblance to the Wildcat. ...
The Northrop P-61 Black Widow was an all-metal, twin-engine, twin-boom, monoplane night fighter and night intruder aircraft flown by the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. It was the first American – and only Allied – purpose-built aircraft to serve as a radar-equipped...
Bomber Command is an organizational military unit, generally subordinate to the air force of a country. ...
Notable aircraft:
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