Phantom Pharewell: Japan bids farewell to the legendary F-4EJ
The legendary McDonnell Douglas F-4EJ Phantom II has bowed of service with the Japan Air Self-Defense Force. Key.Aero looks at the multi-role fighter's half-century of Japanese operations
Storm Shadow makes combat debut with Typhoon
An RAF-operated Eurofighter Typhoon FGR4 has fired MBDA's Storm Shadow for the first time in combat, having used the air-launched cruise missile to strike a target in Iraq on March 10
Denmark’s first F-35A takes flight
The first Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II fifth-generation multi-role stealth fighter for the Royal Danish Air Force has completed its maiden flight
Belgium grounds F-16 fleet due to engine concerns
Belgium has grounded its entire fleet of Lockheed Martin F-16AM/BM (MLU) Fighting Falcon multi-role fighters, meaning that the nation’s air defence duties have now been temporarily taken over by the Netherlands
Singapore marks a decade of F-15SG ops with special tail scheme
The Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) has marked a decade of Boeing F-15SG Strike Eagle operations by applying a special tail scheme to one of its aircraft
BAE Systems set to launch EPAWSS production
BAE Systems has received a US$58m contract from Boeing to launch low-rate initial production of the F-15 Eagle Passive Active Warning and Survivability System (EPAWSS) for the USAF
Former Blue Angels F/A-18C prepared for permanent display
The US Navy’s Fleet Readiness Center Southwest is preparing a Boeing F/A-18C Hornet – formerly operated by the service’s Blue Angels demonstration team – for permanent display at NAS North Island in California
Viper's Bite: The Evolution of the F-16
With more than 4,600 aircraft produced, the F-16 is a design masterpiece and a stunning export success. While today's variants may be a world away from the original in terms of capability, the Falcon is still fighting and could win more orders in the future, as Key.Aero explores
Australia receives another three F-35As
Australia’s Department of Defence confirmed on March 1 that three more Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning IIs had arrived in the ‘Land Down Under’, bringing the RAAF’s fleet up to 33 aircraft
Italian Eurofighters intercept unidentified aircraft over the Baltic
A pair of Italian Air Force-operated Eurofighter F-2000As were scrambled from Šiauliai Air Base in Lithuania to intercept an unidentified aircraft flying over the Baltic Sea on February 17
Fighter aircraft were not the first heavier-than-air military aircraft. During the First World War bi-planes with a pilot and a crew member would carry out. Guns were soon added to these aircraft and the fighters were born; the term dogfight became synonymous with the new form of aerial combat. These aircraft would also crudely drop bombs with a crew member simply throwing the bombs out of the aircraft. After the First World War, fighter development led to the single wing, enclosed cockpit, propeller powered aircraft such as the RAF Hawker Hurricane, Luftwaffe Messerschmitt Bf 109 and the United States Army Airforce North American Aviation P-51 Mustang. After the war, the RAF Gloster Meteor was the RAF’s first operational jet fighter and it was rapidly joined by fast jets from France, Russia and the USA.
Today, the roles of military fast jets have hardly changed, from intercepting other fast jets fighters or bombers, to maintaining air superiority, they are bombing air defences and photographing bombed sites for battle damage assessment as well as escorting slower, more vulnerable aircraft.
Different Types of Fighter Planes
From the first aerial reconnaissance aircraft, the Wright brothers military flyer, or Model A, sold to the US military in 1909, it took 45 years until the United States Airforce’s North American F-100 Super Sabre became the world’s first operational supersonic fighter in 1954. There has been a huge amount of technological development between the Super Sabre and the world’s first operational fifth generation fighter, the United States Marine Corp’s Lockheed Martin F-35B/C Lightning II, which entered service in 2015. All fixed wing aircraft, since the advent of jet fighters in World War Two, have been a variety of designs to meet the military’s changing needs. Jet engines were in development before World War Two, but it was only near the end of that war that the first operational fast jet fighter, the Messerschmitt Me 262, took to the skies.
Fighters steadily developed to fly higher and faster, carry more payloads, both missiles and bombs, and became supersonic. The need for greater speed saw the delta wing shape for supersonic flight, air-to-air missiles were used in the Korean War for the first time, and it was only later that fighters were equipped with radar, allowing for longer range interception. The 1960s saw the development of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) capability with the Royal Navy’s Hawker Siddeley Harrier, which is still in service with the Indian military. Propeller powered fighter aircraft did not end with the flights of the Gloster Meteor and the 1950s saw experiments with VTOL propeller powered aircraft that sat on their tails in a vertical position.
Since the 1980s fast jets have become stealthy, first with the now retired Lockheed Martin F-117 Nighthawk which was primarily a bomber, to the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, an interceptor, and the multirole Lockheed Martin F-35, which are both said to have very small radar signatures.
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