Which is the best military jet fighter?

Question

Which jet fighter is the best? Your favourite? Mine will be F-22. The Eurofighter's design is not so nice, like a bamboo with a delta wings, but it's a great fighter!

Answer 1

The F-18 is a better design and a working fighter bomber with a concrete mission and years of experience behind it.

The F-22 is a "gee-wiz" fighter with a lot of wonderful gadgets and technology, but no real mission. It has too small of a payload capacity to make a big difference (unlike the Super Hornet) and it costs way too much for many of them to be produced. The F-22 will be produced, but used in a war is a different question. The backbone of the US and many of our allies will rely on the Joint Strike Fighter which is a lot of compromises from the F-22. It hasn't been tested in combat yet and isn't even finished in its total design.

The Eurofighter is a similar design, a compromise. The delta wings are a French trademark that has been in production since soon after WW2. The problem is that it provides a massive wing area for lift, payload AND radar detection. Stealth is the wave of the future and a delta wing fighter has too great a compromise in stealth technology.

The problem isn't hitting the target anymore, you don't need to run massive bombing missions with huge fighter support. The problem is getting to the target without being shot down first. Radar interceptors and Surface to Air (SAM) missiles a pretty good technology and even if the missile is as long as a telephone pole it is an excellent trade off for a fighter or bomber. It only takes one hit to take one down.

In the Gulf War the US first action was to send in low altitude helicopters, Apaches, to take out the radar and SAM stations on the border so the planes could get to their targets.

We found that the Nighthawk stealth plane has the radar signature of a large bird and all that fire power you saw shot into the air was after it cleared the target zone, firing blind. The problem is the Nighthawk may be classified a fighter, but without a gun and with only two bombs it is a bomber not a fighter. The lesson of the stealth aircraft is that you can't detect them until it is too late. With the next generation fighters you can detect them, because they won't be as heavily stealthed, but you have to double or even triple the density of your radar and SAM sights. Compared to the price of a plane that is pretty cheap and thanks to radar guns it is getting cheaper.

The new detection system will use a Laser like radar = LADAR (Laser Detection and Ranging) which will ignore things that make the current crop of stealth planes so hard to see. A huge delta wing will be like the side of a bus to them. So a different plane will be needed. The US is currently working on optical camouflage and they should have it in 10 years. You might have the same problem the Predator had with movement, but to ladar the planes will be invisible. In that case a new technology to detect the planes will be needed. The stealth planes already address infrared detection and sonar may not be fast enough.

Our next fighter is going to have to address both optical and radar stealth, only the US programs is looking at optical stealth. The rest of the world is still behind us there. So it is much more likely that a US fighter like the Joint Striker Fighter will be the next generation fighter. However, the CURRENT best fighter in the air is the F-18A Super Hornet. It flies in day or night, has a wide range of targeting options a huge payload range and a proven track record. The F-16 is a daylight fighter only. The other fighters don’t hold a candle to the F-18A. The avionics can be improved to F-22 standards fairly easily and it can carry the new optical camouflage. It is not as stealthy as the Joint Strike Fighter or the F-22 are, but it can still handle the job quite well.

I think the Joint Strike Fighter is going to have to replace the F-18 as the workhorse for the entire US armed services and the F-22 will be regulated to a side roll like the Nighthawk.

Answer 2

I think that it is hard to award the F-22 the best fighter in the world when it has not been tested in combat and it really is still being developed.
The F/A-18A is not the Super Hornet. The Alphas have been upgraded to the A+ and most of them are gone. There are still a few around that have replaced the trapped out F/A-18Cs and serve in an adversary training role.
With that being said the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet is the best. It is bigger than its little brother the Hornet, carries more fuel, more weapons, and has some stealth technology built into it. It is not superior in any role put performs well in every role from air-to-air, close air support, air-to-ground to in-flight refueling. Dollar for dollar it is hands down the best. The G model will be an electronic tactical warfare model that will replace the EA-6Bs.

Answer 3

I have to list two planes. One is a fighter from WWII the P51 Mustang the F-15.

The P51 helped the allies turn the air battle against the German airforce. Us bombers were suffering loses that were as high as 10-15% of the planes in one day of bombing. The US needed a fighter that could accomany the bomber all the way to their target and back. The original P51 Mustang had what was called an Alison Radial engine, This was a good engine, but was under powered for the application in the first editions of the Mustang Fighter. Later variatants of the P51-B and later were powered by the Marlin ( British Roll-Royce engine). This is definitely a combat proven aircraft.

The F15 is the modern equivilent of the P51 Mustang. It is battle proven and is presetnly unequal in its performance as a fighter plane. There are other planes built by the europeans and the Russians, but the US F15 is battle proven and battle tested.

So I would have to say that the P51B with the Merlin Engine and the F15 are the greatest fighter planes in history.

Answer 4

Today? Probably the most advanced and practical is the F-35, which is a smaller and more practical version of the F-22, and some varients have a VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) fan in it.

In my opinion, the most effective and mass produced fighter of all time was the A6M Zero, built by Mitsubishi. The P-51 Mustang, P-40 Warhawk, and the Supermarine Spitfire are runners up though.

Answer 5

It depends.

F-22
pros: great head to head.

weakness: cost will cause massive chance of being swamped. China plans to have 2,500 jet fighters while there is probably going to be 400 F-22s scattered around the world. Instead of the Chinese, in this case, going after the F-22s, they would go after the AWACs, refueling craft and airstrips used by the F-22s.

JSF
Pro: cost effective while being stealthy.
weakness: no more maneuverable than 4th generation aircraft.

SU-37
Pro: the most maneuverable 4th generation aircraft while being the cheapest.
weakness: although maneuverable for a dog fight, most anti-aircraft missiles in the last 20 years are much more maneuverable and all those anti-aircraft missiles have a good chance of taking one out since the SU-37 is not stealthy.

Answer 6

It's all relative of course, but I love the old P-51. The F-15 is pretty sweet too, but as far as modern fighters go you can't deny the F-22 is pretty sweet. It has speed, stealth, tactical superiority, advanced flight capabilities (i.e. thrust vectoring), decent payload, etc.

The Typhoon isn't really comparable. It's older and lacks some of the modern developments of the F-22. I think it looks really cool. I love the canard design.

The Su-30 is a fine plane too.

I love it that a female asked this question. This is a great leap forward in the equality of the sexes.

Answer 7

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Answer 8

The F-22 is by far the best fighter in the air today. As far as the Russian fighter go, you can find little pieces of those awesome birds scattered across every country we have fought in over the past half century.

Answer 9

F-22 is the latest and greatest. I also like the retired A-10 Warthog (I know, not really a fighter), and the F-17 Stealth.

Answer 10

My favorite fighter of all time, aesthetically speaking of course, is the P-38. I would have to say the best jest out right now is the F-22.