Talk:Fighter aircraft
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This may be a language problem: Is 'Jet Fighter' a subdivision or an entire different thing?
- Not in my opinion, I'll delete that "see also" link --Robert Merkel
WWII-'class' planes started to appear earlier, would it make sense to make the division in 1936? --Yooden
- Probably -- Robert Merkel
Furthermore, Jet fighters appeared at the end of WWII (Messerschmidt, Gloster Meteor) --Arco Scheepen
There's even the rocket-powered fighters: Me 163, Bachem Natter, and even a Japanese version. The latter two never successfully flew even in testing, the first saw limited combat use. --Belltower
Unsure how to designate ground-based versus naval-based versions of the same aircraft. The A/F-18 comes to mind. Anyone know more about this? -- RjLesch
From the main page:
superior manoeuverability and flight characteristics of the Spitfire over the Messerschmitt? Me 109 crucial in the Battle Of Britain
I'm not sure this is a correct statement. The Spitfire was a little bit better than the 109, but I don't really think that made much of a difference. The key issue in the Battle of Britain was the range of the fighters. Since the German aircraft had to cross the channel, fight, and leave enough fuel to cross back, they didn't end up spending much time on target. Consequently, the German bombers spent significant portions of time unprotected. And history showed that unescorted bombers suffer greatly to fighter attack. - ansible
OK, I've been doing some more reading, and it seems the Me 109 was indeed a dog compared to a Spit. But I don't think that was the main issue during the Battle of Britain - ansible
Spitfires were not much involved in the Battle of Britain. They were fairly new and only available in small numbers, and in any case, RAF strategy involved putting the Spitfires further north to make them safe from bombing raids, saving them for the real invasion if it happened. Most of the British fighters in the Battle of Britain were Hurricanes, which were not necessarily any better than Me109s. Later in the war when Spitfires did see active service against Me109s, they did get very good results.
- Spitfire, Hurricane and 109 were roughly equal in combat capacity in 1940. Any source which says they were more than just a little different is highly suspect. There were periods later in the war when Spitfires were superior to German fighters, periods when the reverse held true. Hurricane development more-or-less stopped after 1940 when Hawker concentrated on the new Typhoon and Tempest designs. The major differences between the three BofB fighters were (a) the Hurricane was easier to build and repair, and (b) the Spitfire was easier to fly closer to its limits. The myth of the Spitfire's manouverability is just that: a myth. It was, in fact, less manouverable than the Hurricane (and possibly than the 109 - I have to look that up and can't find Quill or Henshaw right now). In the hands of experts, the Spitfire and the 109 were an even match, but in the hands of the average pilot the Spitfire could turn faster. Tannin
My table proposal to replace the long list. We could replace ", " with <br&gr;, or use * again within the table cells
1939-1945
Many of these fighters would do over 400 m.p.h. in level flight, and were fast enough in a dive that they started encountering the effects of getting too close to the speed of sound, occasionally even to the point of breaking up in flight. Dive brakes were developed late in WW II to minimize these problems and restore control to the pilots.
1945-1952
The first generation of production jet fighter planes had performance problems near sonic speed (similar to that of the latest piston engined fighters) until aeronautical engineer Richard Whitcomb discovered the "area rule" in 1952. Subsequent designs featured a "bottle-shaped" fuselage that improved performance. This would be an important distinction between early jet fighters (F-86, etc.) and later ones, like the F-5.
On Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft I have started a proposal for how lists of aircraft could be rationalised on wikipedia. If you're interested, let's discuss it there -- Cabalamat 03:09, 1 Sep 2003 (UTC)