Fighter aircraft

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 realized that an aircraft intended to destroy its kind in the air needed at least to be fast enough to catch its quarry.

First generation subsonic jet fighters (mid-1940s to mid-1950s)
The first generation of jet fighters comprises the initial, subsonic jet fighter designs introduced late in World War II and in the early post-war period. The first jets were developed during World War II and saw combat in the last two years of the war. Messerschmitt developed the first operational jet fighter, the Me 262. Read more

Second generation jet fighters (mid-1950s to early 1960s)
The development of second-generation fighters was shaped by technological breakthroughs, lessons learned from the aerial battles of the Korean War, and a focus on conducting operations in a nuclear warfare environment. Read more

An early monoplane fighter: the Boeing P-26 Peashooter which first flew in 1932

Third-generation jet fighters (early 1960s to circa 1970)
The third generation witnessed continued maturation of second-generation innovations, but it is most marked by renewed emphases on maneuverability and traditional ground-attack capabilities. Over the course of the 1960s, increasing combat experience with guided missiles demonstrated that combat would devolve into close-in dogfights. Read more

Fourth generation jet fighters (circa 1970 to mid-1990s)
Fourth-generation fighters continued the trend towards multirole configurations, and were equipped with increasingly sophisticated avionics and weapon systems. Fighter designs were significantly influenced by the Energy-Maneuverability (E-M) theory developed by Colonel John Boyd and mathematician Thomas Christie, based upon Boyd's combat experience in the Korean War and as a fighter tactics instructor during the 1960s. Read more

4.5th generation jet fighters (1990s to the present)
The end of the Cold War in 1991 led many governments to significantly decrease military spending as a "peace dividend". Air force inventories were cut, and research and development programs intended to produce what was then anticipated to be "fifth-generation" fighters took serious hits; many programs were canceled during the first half of the 1990s, and those which survived were "stretched out". Read more

Fifth generation jet fighters (2005 to the present)
The fifth generation was ushered in by the Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 Raptor in late 2005. Currently the cutting edge of fighter design, fifth-generation fighters are characterized by being designed from the start to operate in a network-centric combat environment, and to feature extremely low, all-aspect, multi-spectral signatures employing advanced materials and shaping techniques. They have multifunction AESA radars with high-bandwidth, low-probability of intercept (LPI) data transmission capabilities. Read more

Source Obtained: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia