Title: Fighter aircraft - Wikipedia
Headings: Fighter aircraft
Fighter aircraft
Contents
Classification
Air superiority fighter
Interceptor
Night and all-weather fighters
Strategic fighters
Historical overview
Piston engine fighters
World War I
Inter-war period (1919–38)
World War II
European theater
Pacific theater
Technological innovations
Post–World War II period
Rocket-powered fighters
Jet-powered fighters
First-generation subsonic jet fighters (mid-1940s to mid-1950s)
Second-generation jet fighters (mid-1950s to early 1960s)
Third-generation jet fighters (early 1960s to circa 1970)
Fourth-generation jet fighters (circa 1970 to mid-1990s)
4.5-generation jet fighters (1990s to 2000s)
Fifth-generation jet fighters (2000s to 2020s)
Sixth-generation jet fighters (2020s onward)
Fighter weapons
See also
References
Citations
Bibliography
External links

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American fighters from different eras; a World War II P-38 Lightning (upper right), a pair of Korean War F-86 Sabres, and a modern F-22 Raptor (lower left)
Fighter aircraft are fixed-wing military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air superiority of the battlespace. Domination of the airspace above a battlefield permits bombers and attack aircraft to engage in tactical and strategic bombing of enemy targets. The key performance features of a fighter include not only its firepower 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 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, these include the interceptor, heavy fighter, and night fighter .