An air superiority fighter is a type of fighter aircraft intended to gain air superiority in a war, by entering and seizing control of enemy airspace. Air superiority fighters are designed to effectively engage enemy fighters, more than other types of aircraft. They are usually more expensive and procured in smaller numbers than multirole fighters.
During World War II and through the Korean War, fighters were classified by their role: heavy fight...
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An air superiority fighter is a type of fighter aircraft intended to gain air superiority in a war, by entering and seizing control of enemy airspace. Air superiority fighters are designed to effectively engage enemy fighters, more than other types of aircraft. They are usually more expensive and procured in smaller numbers than multirole fighters.
During World War II and through the Korean War, fighters were classified by their role: heavy fighter, interceptor, escort fighter, night fighter, and so forth. With the development of guided missiles in the 1950s, design diverged between fighters optimized to fight in the beyond visual range (BVR) regime (interceptors), and fighters optimized to fight in the within visual range (WVR) regime (air superiority fighters). In United States, the influential proponents of BVR developed the fighters with no forward-firing gun, such as the original F-4 Phantom II, as it was thought that they would never even need to resort to WVR combat. These...
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