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The pilots who became Air Force generals in the Fifties had learned their trade in the Thirties when speed was the most-desired quality in a fighter. … When the requirements for new fighter aircraft were written in the Fifties, those generals made sure that a higher top speed was part of the specification. …

The idea that missiles will be all a fighter aircraft needs was prevalent in the late Fifties. …

You would need to go back one more decade to find a frontline fighter that was designed within two years. …

The Defiant's only successful role was as an early night fighter; when attacked by day it could only join others in a Lufbery circle to defend against being shot down itself. Bouton-Paul Defiant F. … the longitudinal axis of the fighter, so this idea was dropped very soon. …

It is an explosive cord which helps to crack the canopy (pdf!) before the ejection seat has to do this all by itself. When ejection is commanded, the harness is tightened and the canopy is shattered, …

In all cases the docking was made from below, because this gave the fighter pilot the best field of view and reduced the risk of a tail strike. … The Russians tried to dock a fighter with a mothership as early as the 1930s. The picture below shows a TB-3 docking with a I-Z fighter, the first pair of aircraft in history to dock in flight. …

Rockets with solid fuel must be round, or they would weigh more. Remember that the rear part is filled with fuel which gradually burns away, so the whole fuel container has to withstand the pressure w …

Using infrared sensors, a fast-moving airplane can be spotted at several 100 km distance if it flies high enough. The friction heating of the fuselage nose and leading edges will stick out against a c …

MBB TKF-90 concept (picture source) First, BAe collaborated with MBB and joined the TKF-90 design, resulting in the European Collaborative Fighter proposal, only to continue on their own with two delta … Meanwhile, MBB collaborated with Dassault in the Future European Fighter Aircraft (FEFA) program, so the French side learned of the advantages of a delta canard. …

Fighter jet engines need a lot of fuel, and at the beginning of the flight the aircraft will be too heavy for vertical climb. … It is conceivable that the fighter will hang vertically on a wall, with its wheels locked in clutches which will release it when the needed thrust is reached. …

The MiG-31 is an all new design with higher strength for low-level flight and new engines. The reason it looks just like the MiG-25 has to do with the structure of the Soviet aviation industry. The ba …

In fact, there was already a wooden jet fighter. The Horten IX (or Gotha 229) had wooden wings and a steel tubing frame in the mid wing with wooden skin. …

Ejecting at 1000 knots means ejection into supersonic flow. Not even the Zvezda K-36, the indisputably best ejection seat around, is rated for that. For this kind of speed, whole enclosures have been …

Short answer: By not flying faster than the 104 did and adhering to the lessons learned. Flutter first started to cause crashes in WW I when improved engine power and aerodynamics made a substantial …

An afterburner uses a lot more fuel for a little more thrust (rule of thumb: 50% more thrust for 5 times the fuel flow with full dry power). Is a flight maneuver possible where using the afterburner w …