Fighter aircraft are military aircraft primarily designed for air-to-air combat. This list does not aim to include attack aircraft primarily intended for different roles, where they have some secondary air-to-air capability. These are included in separate lists of ground attack aircraft, bombers and trainers, but there are bound to be some overlap in roles and designs. Some Multirole combat aircraft could appear in more than one list. This list does not include fictional aircraft or concepts that were abandoned before a prototype was built.
In the US Air Force the naming convention for fighter aircraft is a prefix "F-", followed by a number, ground attack aircraft are prefixed with “A-” and bombers with “B-”. Fighter aircraft from the second world war onwards are sorted into generations, from 1 to 5, based on technological level.[1][2]
- ^ "Military Aircraft Terminology". www.northcentralwis.net. Retrieved 11 April 2024.
- ^ "Fighter Generations". Air & Space Forces Magazine. Retrieved 11 April 2024.