Fighter Aircraft - Terminology

Terminology

The word "fighter" did not become the official English term for such aircraft until after World War I. In Great Britain's Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force these aircraft were referred to as "scouts" into the early 1920s. The U.S. Army called their fighters "pursuit" aircraft from 1916 until the late 1940s. The French chasseur and German Jagdflugzeuge are terms that continue to be used for fighters, and mean "hunter" and "hunting aircraft" respectively. Most languages follow this, except Russian where the fighter .is an "истребитель" (pronounced "istrebitel"), meaning "exterminator" and Hebrew where it is matose krav (literally battle plane).

As a part of military nomenclature, a letter is often assigned to various types of aircraft to indicate their use, along with a number to indicate the specific aircraft. The letters used to designate a fighter differ in various countries — in the English speaking world, "F" is now used to indicate a fighter (e.g. F-35 or Spitfire F.22), though when the pursuit designation was used in the US, they were "P" types (e.g. P-40). In Russia "I" was used (I-16), while the French continue to use "C" (Nieuport 17 C.1).

Although the term "fighter" specifies aircraft designed to shoot down other aircraft, such designs are often also useful as multirole fighter-bombers, strike fighters, and sometimes lighter, fighter-sized tactical ground-attack aircraft. This has always been the case, for instance the Sopwith Camel and other "fighting scouts" of World War I performed a great deal of ground-attack work. In World War II, the USAAF and RAF often favored fighters over dedicated light bombers or dive bombers, and types such as the P-47 Thunderbolt and Hawker Hurricane that were no longer competitive fighters were relegated to ground attack. A number of aircraft, such as the F-111 and F-117, had no fighter capability despite carrying the designation but did so for political reasons. The F-111 was originally intended for a fighter role with the Navy, but this variant was cancelled. This blurring follows the use of fighters from their earliest days for "attack" or "strike" operations against enemy troops, field positions, vehicles, and facilities by means of strafing or dropping small bombs and incendiaries. Versatile multirole fighter-bombers such as the F/A-18 Hornet are a less expensive option than having a range of specialized aircraft types.

Some of the most expensive fighters such as the F-14 Tomcat, F-22 Raptor and F-15 Eagle were employed as all-weather interceptors as well as air superiority fighter aircraft, while commonly developing air-to-ground roles late in their careers. An interceptor is generally an aircraft intended to target (or intercept) bombers and so often trades maneuverability for climb rate.