Air superiority fighter
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An air superiority fighter is a type of fighter aircraft designed to dominate and control airspace. Air superiority fighters are usually expensive aircraft, and procured in lesser numbers compared to smaller and generally more limited aircraft. The term was first used in 1966 to describe the VFAX/VFX F-14 Tomcat1974 Aviation Week Ad: F-14 Tomcat, World's most capable air superiority fighter... eliminates harmful objects with its multiple track-while-scan weapons system, extreme-range simultaneous multiple-missle launch, and variable-sweep-wing versatility , and later the McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) F-15 Eagle.
Evolution of the term
During WWII and through the Korean War, fighters were classified by their role: heavy fighter, interceptor, escort fighter, day fighter and so forth. Towards the end of the war, these types began to coalesce, as individual airframes became more capable and took on more roles. With the devlopment of missiles in the 1950's that could destory targets beyond visual range, design diverged between fighters optimized to fight in the Beyond Visual Range (BVR) regime, and fighters optimized to fight in the Within Visual Range (WVR) regime. In the United States, the proponents of BVR thought it obsolesced WVR, with corresponding compromises in maneuverability and other perfomance characteristics beneficial to dogfighting.
Lessons in combat
Howevever, combat experience in Vietnam proved the BVR proponents wrong. Owing to restrictive rules of engagement and the failings of 1960s missile and radar technology, combat often devolved into a close-range dog-fight, one for which American fighters and pilots were unprepared. The lessons from this conflict spurred a rethinking of design priorities for fighter aircraft.Air Superiority Fighters
This rethinking drove the Navy's VFAX/VFX of the 1960s and Air Force's FX (Fighter Experimental) concept of the 1970's, which resulted in the F-14, and later F-15. The VFX would not compromise interception for the air superiority role, a feat accomplished by Grumman grafting the AWG-9/Phoenix onto an agile airframe. The FX was to be a specialized air superiority fighter, one that sacrificed the ability to carry the Phoenix missle to destroy up to six targets simulaneously at ranges of up to 100 miles in order to excel at only medium beyond visual and short visual range air superiority.
Current Fighters
The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, which like the F-15 lacks a 90 mile range class anti-bomber/missle capability, will be the USAF's next air superiority fighter. The F-14 was the Navy's primary air superiority fighter during its service life. It was replaced by the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, an aircraft which was not originally intended to be the Navy's primary air superiority fighter because of its lack of the F-14's long range simultaneous target engagement capabilities which had been a requirement filled by Navy designs since the 1960s.
Russia's main air-superiority fighters are the Sukhoi Su-27, Sukhoi Su-30 and the MiG-29 Fulcrum
The French Air Force fields the Mirage 2000-5 as its air-superiority fighter.
The new generation of European fighters currently entering service are all capable of the air superiority mission, but is only one of many roles. They are, in alphabetical order, the Saab Gripen, Dassault Rafale and the Eurofighter Typhoon.
The desirable features of an air superiority fighter, most of which were pioneered first by the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, are excellent maneuverability, high thrust-to-weight ratio, high performance radar with the ability to track multiple targets simultaneously, modern digital "glass" cockpits to reduce pilot workload, good visibility from the cockpit (still important in the 21st century), armament consisting of "fire and forget" beyond visual range (BVR) and short and medium range agile, "all-aspect" air-to-air missiles, such as the AMRAAM and ASRAAM respectively.
In order to maximize their combat effectiveness, air superiority fighters will usually operate under the control/co-ordination of an AWACS or Grumman E-2C Hawkeye AEW aircraft.
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