Wiktionary
n. A military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat with other aircraft.
WordNet
n. a high-speed military or naval airplane designed to destroy enemy aircraft in the air [syn: fighter, attack aircraft]
Wikipedia
A fighter aircraft is a military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat against other aircraft, as opposed to bombers and attack aircraft, whose main mission is to attack ground targets. The hallmarks of a fighter are its speed, maneuverability, and small size relative to other combat aircraft.
Many fighters have secondary ground-attack capabilities, and some are designed as dual-purpose fighter-bombers; often aircraft that do not fulfill the standard definition are called fighters. This may be for political or national security reasons, for advertising purposes, or other reasons.
A fighter's main purpose is to establish air superiority over a battlefield. Since World War I, achieving and maintaining air superiority has been considered essential for victory in conventional warfare. The success or failure of a belligerent's efforts to gain air supremacy 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. Because of the importance of air superiority, since the dawn of aerial combat armed forces have constantly competed to develop technologically superior fighters and to deploy these fighters in greater numbers, and fielding a viable fighter fleet consumes a substantial proportion of the defense budgets of modern armed forces.
Usage examples of "fighter aircraft".
But his job was Chinese fighter aircraft, and any bombers that might offer themselves.
As the flight of F-4s bore down on the Soviet base, Crunch could see that they were almost too late: several groups of Soviet fighter aircraft were already on the flight line, ready to begin taxiing down the runway.
To the north of the group, four F-14D fighter aircraft and four F/A-18E fighters set up a barrier CAP some one hundred and fifty miles out.
Tai's radar also showed the approach of four more fighter aircraft from the direction of the aircraft carrier.
Sleek and agile as it was, the B-2 was a bomber, not a fighter, and a huge target for any modern fighter aircraft.
Four fighter aircraft, type unknown, were just rotating off the ground at Basatin, ninety miles away.
His real name was Jeff Winters, and he was a newly promoted captain in the United States Air Force, but because his job was flying fighter aircraft he had to have a special name, known as a call sign.
All hands, this is Lightfoot, hostile fighter aircraft inbound from the east, report to your damage control stations, Stinger and countermeasures crews responding.
Instead, fighter aircraft were scrambled in an attempt to shoot down the plane.
Looking out on the tarmac, Hunter could see that most of their fighter aircraft had already arrived, as well as the C-5 called Nozo.