Specialized doctrine was developed by leading air power teachers and practitioners during the war to govern fighter operations notable figures include Oswald Boelcke, a great exponent of defensive air warfare, and Edward “Mick” Mannock, the most noteworthy of offensive fighter proponents. In Palestine, such attacks at the battle of Wadi al Far’a were responsible for the destruction of a Turkish army and laid open the path to Damascus. These aircraft proved terribly destructive in attacks on enemy ground forces. By 1918, the first “swing‐role” air‐to‐air and air‐to‐ground fighter aircraft-the predecessors of the fighter‐bombers of World War II-were in service, initially with Great Britain's Royal Flying Corps (the predecessor of today's Royal Air Force). As a rule, the Allies on the Western Front were successful in maintaining control of the air throughout the war, to the detriment of their Central Powers opponents.
By 1916, control of the air was a vital prerequisite for the success of any other air operations. Indeed, from 1914 through 1918, five clear generations of fighter aircraft were produced, the latter of which were rudimentary all‐metal monoplane designs by the German designer Hugo Junkers. Development of particular technologies to support the emergence of the fighter-specifically the synchronized forward‐firing machine gun-was swift. They were developed to counter the emergence of the reconnaissance aircraft, which, as early as 1914, had proven so valuable to ground commanders that a means had to be developed to deny one's airspace to the prying eyes of enemy airmen. Over time, from World War I to the present, the fighter has gone from a 70 mph frail open‐cockpit wood‐and‐fabric airplane to a Mach 2+ jet‐propelled aircraft capable of carrying a sophisticated array of electronics and precision weapons.įighters, originally termed “fighting scouts,” initially appeared in World War I. Another category of fighter is the fighter‐bomber, which is capable of participating in the air superiority war, but then, when air superiority is no longer an issue, is capable of being applied as a ground attack airplane. Interceptors, however, typically have more than one crewman, and tend to be larger and heavier, with longer range. Most fighters are small single seat aircraft powered by one or two engines. However, as a result of the threat posed by strategic bombers during and after World War II-and particularly after the development of atomic weaponry-a specialized class of fighter, called the interceptor, was developed specifically to counter the bomber threat.
The term is generally applied to those aircraft designed to have sufficient performance to destroy enemy aircraft. Fighters are aircraft intended to win air superiority by destroying enemy aircraft.
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