Since World War I, achieving and maintaining air superiority has been considered essential for victory in conventional warfare. Other fighter designs are highly specialized while still filling the main air superiority role, and these include the interceptor, heavy fighter, and night fighter. Many modern fighter aircraft also have secondary capabilities such as ground attack and some types, such as fighter-bombers, are designed from the outset for dual roles. The success or failure of a combatant's efforts to gain air superiority hinges on several factors including the skill of its pilots, the tactical soundness of its doctrine for deploying its fighters, and the numbers and performance of those fighters. The key performance features of a fighter include not only its firepower but also its high speed and maneuverability relative to the target aircraft. Domination of the airspace above a battlefield permits bombers and attack aircraft to engage in tactical and strategic bombing of enemy targets. In military conflict, the role of fighter aircraft is to establish air superiority of the battlespace. An F-16 Fighting Falcon (left), P-51D Mustang (bottom), F-86 Sabre (top), and F-22 Raptor (right) fly in a formation representing four generations of American fighters.įighter aircraft are fixed-wing military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat.
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