Military aircraft

A military aircraft is a Avion used by a Armée, either as an offensive or defensive means (fighter), or as a means of support of its operations (transport aircraft and others). The use of military aircrafts developed at the time of the First World War, before becoming an essential component of the military strategy starting from the Second world war and involving the constitution of an army corps specialized in all the countries (the Air force) and a specialized component of the Navy (the Aéronavale).

History

The plane appeared a few years only before the First World War, but was quickly used by the soldiers. Its first missions were the same ones as those of the balloons used previously, namely the recognition and the adjustment of the shootings of Artillerie, then the light Bombardement. It is in order to prevent and to counter the unfavourable missions that the first fighter plans appeared.

The italo-Turkish Guerre was the theater of the first military use of aviation: October 23rd, 1911, a Italian Aviateur (the captain Carlo Piazza) flies over the Turkish lines for a reconnaissance mission and, on November 1st, the first launched bomb of the air by a plane falls on the Turkish troops in Libya. September 10th, 1912, a monoplane Nieuport is the first plane shot down with the combat, descended by a battery from machine-guns. It is necessary to wait on October 5th, 1914 to record the first aerial combat between a French plane and a German plane, close to Rheims.

In the inter-war period, the military aviation improves (the monoplanes replace the majority of the biplanes, the engines become increasingly powerful and the increasingly aerodynamic profiles of planes). The armies develop much this weapon, feeling a new war to come. But, before the release of this war, of the nations are very in advance technologically (Germany, Great Britain) while others take delay (the United States, France, etc) whereas the prototypes flower and that their performances are increasingly high.

The military aviation is used in an intensive way at the beginning of the Second world war: it is an essential component of the German Blitzkrieg, and the Bataille of England is the first air battle of the History. This war alas marks also the beginning of the bombardment solid masses of civil objectives carried out with formations of several hundreds of planes: initially by the Germany (raids on Rotterdam and Coventry since 1940) and the Japan, then by the the United States and the the United Kingdom as from 1943 (raids on Hamburg, Tokyo, etc). In Asia, the Second world war will finish after the atomic Bombardements of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

All the conflicts which have occurred since (Guerre of Korea, Guerre of Vietnam, etc) saw the military aviation playing a all the more essential part as the performances of the planes increased considerably. The need for securing the superiority on unfavourable aviation was even a powerful engine of the various innovations brought since the beginning of the Second world war.

Technologies

The Second world war and the Cold war involved an research effort and of considerable innovation in order to obtain a superiority on the opposing side. This effort naturally appeared in the development of increasingly advanced technologies.

Initially propelled by the Engine spark-ignition involving a Propeller, the military aircrafts used the Reaction engine as of the end of the Second world war. This quickly made it possible to steal at speeds very right Supersonique S as of the years 1950, and even higher as from the years 1960.

Considerable progresses were also accomplished in the electronic field (Radar, electric Orders of flight, navigation systems, etc) and of the armament (Missile, laser guided Bombe, etc): today, a hunter can cut down another 80-90 away km of them with a missile!

Costs of a military aircraft

The improvements of the performances (new engines, new materials, novel methods of construction) and of the equipment (Radar, Avionique) make that the price of the planes strongly increases from one generation to another and, consequently, even the number of modern apparatuses that the richest nations can be offered decreases unrelentingly.

As example among the planes designed with the the United States:

It is appropriate to specify, however, that the number of specimens of P-51 Mustang comprises planes built during the Second world war, that the number of specimens of F-86 Saber comprises planes built during the Guerre of Korea and that the number of specimens of F-4 Phantom comprises planes built during the Guerre of Vietnam. A certain number of these apparatuses were thus built to replace apparatuses destroyed by the combat or in preparation for imminent combat, which relativizes without calling it into question the effect of the trend of costs on the number of built apparatuses.

For these direct costs of purchase of the plane itself, it is necessary to add the costs of maintenance (regular maintenance) and the training costs of the pilots and mechanics, them also in constant rise because of the increase in the complexity of the planes. Here some figures of 2006 concerning the Naval air force French:

E-2 Hawkeye : 40.300 € /h.
Dassault Rafale: 39.000 €/h.
Atlantic 2: 18.800 €/h.
Dassault Super-Standard: 13.000 €/h.

The low number of apparatuses used increases the costs. If one takes the case of E-2 Hawkeye, the US Navy figure the hour of exploitation to 18.000 US dollars for 150 specimens bought since 1960, while the National marine has only 3 specimens of this plane which costs him practically 3 times more expensive per hour.

Park of fighters in 2002

One estimates that on this date approximately 28.000 fighters were operational in the world, with the following geographical distribution:

the United States: 22%
Combined NATO: 14%
Russia: 9%
Popular republic of China: 10%
Remainder of the Asia: 18%
the Middle East and North Africa: 13%
Rest of the world: 14%

See too

List of the military aircrafts
Abbreviations of aeronautics