Fighter jet (1976): F-15/F-16 / Su-27

Fighter aircraft began as gun-armed scouts in 1915-18. The jet fighter arrived in combat in 1944 with the Messerschmitt Me 262 -- late, few, and unable to change 1945. The Gloster Meteor and then a flood of 1950s types (F-86, MiG-15) made the Korean War the first large jet-versus-jet campaign, in the northwest "MiG Alley."

Generations (a later marketing-and-staff word) run from those first jets through Mach-2 types (MiG-21, F-4), agile 1970s designs, and low-observable types. This page names that history. It does not teach how to fly, fight, or build a jet. Export politics -- who may buy which type -- is as important as wing shape.

English memory is Top Gun, the Battle of Britain's propeller Few retroactively jet-washed, and museum rows at Duxford. Korean memory is MiG Alley, the F-86, and a long climb toward KF-21 as industry. TechShift in this atlas is among the highest of the weapon types. From a late German jet to an export politics