Fighter plan

A fighter plan (or simply hunter ) is a Military aircraft designed to attack the unfavourable Avion S, which it is a question for example of bomber S in order to prevent them from reaching their targets, or other hunters in order to protect the bombers from its own camp

History

The fighter plans appeared at the time of the First World War in order to cut down the planes and enemy balloons of recognition, then the first bomber S. the first aerial combat took place on October 5th, 1914 close to Rheims. The use of machine-guns on planes, then equipped with a Propeller, was not without posing some problems: to see the detailed article .

At the time of the Second world war, the hunters had to play a paramount role: the control of the sky and the air superiority became a vital part of the military doctrines, for example within the framework of the Blitzkrieg. During the Battle of England, the incapacity of the Luftwaffe to come to end from the squadrons from British hunters returned the invasion of the impossible United Kingdom.

Research intended to produce increasingly powerful hunters led inter alia to the appearance, in operations, of the first planes with Réaction, at the end of the Second world war. The first were the Messerschmitt 262 German, but they were used little because the Staff rather intended them for the role of fighter-bomber. Devoting the irreversible decline of the propeller planes, the Guerre of Korea was the occasion of the first aerial combats between jet fighters, mainly between the American F-86 Saber and the Mig-15 Russian.

As of the Years 1950, fighter plans Supersonique S were developed, quickly followed by planes able to fly to more twice Speed of sound. Generally, one saw appearing increasingly powerful planes but also increasingly large and complex. Since the years 1980, efforts were made to produce simpler planes, without to sacrifice the performances too much.

Characteristics

The schedule of conditions of a good fighter plan changed considerably with time. The basic characteristics were initially:

manoeuvrable possible, in order to dodge an unfavourable plane and to easily put in position of shooting (Sopwith Camel, Mitsubishi Zero),
fast in rise, the level and piqué (Spad VII, Me 109), in order to be able to catch up with its targets or on the contrary to escape a too powerful adversary,
strongly armed to carry effective blows in a minimum of time (Hurricane, FW 190, P-47)

During the Second world war, these criteria changed gradually:

maneuverability passing in the second plan behind the speed and the fire power (Me 262),
resistance to the blows necessary to the survival of the plane and the pilot
the autonomy of flight becoming essential for the missions with long range (P-51 Mustang)

Our day, with the engagements out of the field of vision, a hunter must be:

equipped with a powerful Radar allowing him to detect all the potential targets around him
equipped with electronic countermeasures.

Its weapons are:

of the machine-guns initially, then guns starting from the Second world war
of the rockets between the end of the Second world war and the years 1960
of the air-to-air missiles since the end of the year 1950

Other terms used

Historically, the fighter plans were divided into several categories like the hunters of day, hunters of night, hunter with long operating range, etc This was justified by the differences of performances and equipment necessary for each one of these roles. Nowadays, all the hunters can operate day like night.

Just after the Second world war appeared the first interceptors, often with an autonomy less important than a traditional hunter, their mission limiting itself to take off, join the adversary and to destroy it. One will quote for example the English Electric Lightning.

The term of Avion of air superiority generally indicates a more general-purpose plane of " type; hunter lourd" like F-15 Eagle or the Known-27 Flanker.

See too

List of the military aircrafts

External bonds

Site of the Museum European of the Fighter force

Simple: Fighter aircraft Zh-min-nan: Chiàn-tàu-ki

Random links: