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The Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II (known only as Lightning in British service) is a single-seat, single-engine, all-weather stealth multirole combat aircraft . It is intended to perform both air superiority and strike missions while also providing electronic warfare and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities. It will be jointly operated by the RAF and the Royal Navy and with its ability to perform short take-offs and vertical-landings (STOVL), can operate from the Royal Navy's Queen Elizabeth -class aircraft carriers. [124] Originally a total of 138 Lightnings were planned, [125] [126] [127] however the 2021 Defence Command Paper amended this to a commitment to increase the fleet beyond the current order of 48. [122] By December 2020, twenty-one F-35Bs had been delivered to the RAF. [128] The first RAF squadron to operate the F-35B was No. 17 Test and Evaluation Squadron at Edwards AFB , California , accepting its first aircraft in 2014. [129]...

The HAI Ε1-79 Pegasus ( Greek : ΕΑΒ Ε1-79 Πήγασος ) is a Greek endogenous medium-altitude long-endurance Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (MALE - UAV) produced by the Hellenic Aerospace Industry (HAI/EAB). It entered service with the Hellenic Air Force as Pegasus in 1992, and as the upgraded version Pegasus II in 2005. [5] Its main mission is Intelligence Surveillance & Reconnaissance over-battlefield (ISR-OB) . 

The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is a single-engine multirole fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force (USAF). Designed as an air superiority day fighter , it evolved into a successful all-weather multirole aircraft. Over 4,600 aircraft have been built since production was approved in 1976. [4] Although no longer being purchased by the U.S. Air Force, improved versions are being built for export customers. [5] In 1993, General Dynamics sold its aircraft manufacturing business to the Lockheed Corporation , [6] which in turn became part of Lockheed Martin after a 1995 merger with Martin Marietta . [7] The Fighting Falcon's key features include a frameless bubble canopy for better visibility, side-mounted control stick to ease control while maneuvering, an ejection seat reclined 30 degrees from vertical to reduce the effect of g-forces on the pilot , and the first use of a relaxed static stability / fly-by-wire ...

 The Aérospatiale / BAC Concorde ( / ˈ k ɒ ŋ k ɔːr d / ) is a British–French turbojet -powered supersonic passenger airliner that was operated from 1976 until 2003. It had a maximum speed over twice the speed of sound , at Mach 2.04 (1,354 mph or 2,180 km/h at cruise altitude), with seating for 92 to 128 passengers. First flown in 1969, Concorde entered service in 1976 and operated for 27 years. It is one of only two supersonic transports to have been operated commercially; the other is the Soviet-built Tupolev Tu-144 , which operated in the late 1970s. [4] [5]  

 he Nieuport-Delage NiD 52 was a French fighter aircraft of the 1920s. A single-engined sesquiplane , it served with the Spanish Air Force , being operated by both sides of the Spanish Civil War . [1]  

  The Cessna 152 is an American two-seat, fixed- tricycle-gear , general aviation airplane , used primarily for flight training and personal use. It was based on the earlier Cessna 150 incorporating a number of minor design changes and a slightly more powerful engine with a longer time between overhaul . The Cessna 152 has been out of production for more than thirty years, but many are still airworthy and are still in regular use for flight training.

  The Airbus A350 is a long-range , wide-body jet airliner developed by Airbus . The first A350 design proposed by Airbus in 2004, in response to the Boeing 787 Dreamliner , would have been a development of the A330 with composite wings and new engines. As market support was inadequate, in 2006, Airbus switched to a clean-sheet "XWB" (eXtra Wide Body) design, powered by Rolls-Royce Trent XWB turbofan engines. The prototype first flew on 14 June 2013 from Toulouse in France . Type certification from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) was obtained in September 2014, followed by certification from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) two months later. The A350 is the first Airbus aircraft largely made of carbon fibre reinforced polymer . It has a new fuselage designed around a nine-abreast economy cross-section, up from the eight-abreast A330/A340. It has a common type rating with the A330. The airliner has two variants: the A350-900 typically carries 300 ...

  Engines Engine power and aircraft performance increased steadily throughout the war, with liquid-cooled inline and vee engines competing with air-cooled radials much as they had competed with air-cooled rotary types in the First War. As an example, at the start of the war the Rolls-Royce Merlin III liquid-cooled V-12 engine developed just 1,000 hp while at the end its derivative the Rolls-Royce Griffon 61 offered 2,035 hp. [5] [ citation needed ] In the early stages of the war German fighters, especially the Messerschmitt Bf 109 , were very fast and maneuverable and had the advantage over the British types of a fuel-injected engine. This allowed them to fly upside-down or to perform other negative-G manoeuvres without fear of the engine cutting out, as happened to the British types fitted with carburettors. On the other hand, the carburettor combined with a turbocharger gave better performance at altitude. [6] However, as the war wore on, Germany's critica...

  Aircraft Airframes The streamlined cantilever monoplane quickly proved its worth in almost every role, although a few older biplanes and other obsolescent types remained in niche roles for much of the war. Key design features during this period included: Stressed-skin semi-monocoque construction, typically of aluminium light alloy but sometimes of wooden or mixed construction. A clean, unbraced cantilever monoplane wing. Conventional tail or empennage , with bombers often adopting twin tail fins, believed to improve stability during the bombing run. retracting landing gear of conventional configuration with a tailwheel or tailskid. Landing flaps. Variable-pitch propellers in tractor configuration. Fully enclosed cockpit . The retracting undercarriage gave landplanes a significant performance advantage over the equivalent seaplane , whose floats caused additional drag. In other respects, the evolution of seaplane design paralleled landplane developments. Seaplanes, typic...

  During World War II, aviation firmly established itself as a critical component of modern warfare from the Battle of Britain in the early stages to the great aircraft carrier battles between American and Japanese Pacific fleets and the final delivery of nuclear weapons. The major combatants – Germany and Japan on the one side and Britain , the United States and the USSR on the other – manufactured huge air forces which engaged in pitched battles both with each other and with the opposing ground forces. Bombing established itself as a major strategic force, and this was also the first war in which the aircraft carrier played a significant role. As with Aviation in World War I , military investment during World War II drove aviation forward in leaps and bounds. The streamlined cantilever monoplane quickly proved its worth in almost every role, although a few older biplanes remained in niche roles for much of the war. Engine power and aircraft performance inc...

The Santos-Dumont Demoiselle was a series of aircraft built in France by world aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont . They were light-weight monoplanes with a wire-braced wing mounted above an open-framework fuselage built from bamboo. The pilot's seat was below the wing and between the main wheels of the undercarriage. The rear end of the boom carried a tailwheel and a cruciform tail. The name is a synonym for "jeune fille"—young girl or woman—but also the common name in French for a Damselfly . 

The Grigorovich M-11 (or Shchetinin M-11 ) was a Russian single-seat fighter flying boat designed by Dmitry Pavlovich Grigorovich and built by Shchetinin

The Canadair CF-104 Starfighter ( CF-111 , CL-90 ) is a modified version of the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter supersonic fighter aircraft built in Canada by Canadair under licence. It was primarily used as a ground attack aircraft, despite being designed as an interceptor. It served with the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and later the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) until it was replaced by the McDonnell Douglas CF-18 Hornet . The Canadair CF-104 Starfighter ( CF-111 , CL-90 ) is a modified version of the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter supersonic fighter aircraft built in Canada by Canadair under licence. It was primarily used as a ground attack aircraft, despite being designed as an interceptor. It served with the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and later the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) until it was replaced by the McDonnell Douglas CF-18 Hornet .

The Dassault Mirage F2 was a French prototype two-seat ground attack / fighter aircraft , which was designed to serve as a test bed for the SNECMA TF306 turbofan engine. The F2 also influenced the subsequent Dassault Mirage G , a variable geometry design. The Dassault Mirage F2 was a French prototype two-seat ground attack / fighter aircraft , which was designed to serve as a test bed for the SNECMA TF306 turbofan engine. The F2 also influenced the subsequent Dassault Mirage G , a variable geometry design.

  The Hawker Siddeley Harrier is a British military aircraft. It was the first of the Harrier Jump Jet series of aircraft and was developed in the 1960s as the first operational ground attack and reconnaissance aircraft with vertical/short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) capabilities and the only truly successful V/STOL design of that era. The Harrier was developed directly from the Hawker Siddeley Kestrel prototype aircraft, following the cancellation of a more advanced supersonic aircraft, the Hawker Siddeley P.1154 . The British Royal Air Force (RAF) ordered the Harrier GR.1 and GR.3 variants in the late 1960s. It was exported to the United States as the AV-8A, for use by the US Marine Corps (USMC), in the 1970s. During the Harrier's service the RAF positioned the bulk of the aircraft in West Germany to defend against a potential invasion of Western Europe by the Warsaw Pact forces; the unique abilities of the Harrier allowed the RAF to disperse their forces away from...

  Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17 The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17 ( Russian : Микоян и Гуревич МиГ-17 ; NATO reporting name : Fresco ) [1] is a high-subsonic fighter aircraft produced in the USSR from 1952 and operated by numerous air forces in many variants. It is an advanced development of the similar-looking MiG-15 of the Korean War . The MiG-17 was license-built in China as the Shenyang J-5 and Poland as the PZL-Mielec Lim-6 . MiG-17s first saw combat in 1958 in the Second Taiwan Strait Crisis and later proved to be an effective threat against more modern supersonic fighters of the United States in the Vietnam War . It was also briefly known as the Type 38 by U.S. Air Force designation prior to the development of NATO codes. [2]

1915: The Fokker Scourge The first purpose-designed fighter aircraft included the British Vickers F.B.5 , and machine guns were also fitted to several French types, such as the Morane-Saulnier L and N . Initially the German Air Service lagged behind the Allies in this respect, but this was soon to change dramatically. In July 1915 the Fokker E.I , the first aircraft to enter service with a " synchronisation gear " which enabled a machine gun to fire through the arc of the propeller without striking its blades, became operational. This gave an important advantage over other contemporary fighter aircraft. This aircraft and its immediate successors, collectively known as the Eindecker (German for " monoplane ") – for the first time supplied an effective equivalent to Allied fighters. Two German military aviators, Leutnants Otto Parschau and Kurt Wintgens , worked for the Fokker firm during the spring of 1915, demonstrating the revolutionary feature of the f...

Early Western Front reconnaissance duties Further information: Aerial reconnaissance in World War I By the end of 1914 the line between the Germans and the Allies stretched from the North Sea to the Alps. The initial "war of movement" largely ceased, and the front became static. Three main functions of short range reconnaissance squadrons had emerged by March 1915. The first was photographic reconnaissance: building up a complete mosaic map of the enemy trench system. The first air cameras used glass plates. ( Kodak cellulose film had been invented, but did not at this stage have sufficient resolution). [10] Artillery "spotting" enabled the ranging of artillery on targets invisible to the gunners. Radio telephony was not yet practical from an aircraft, so communication was a problem. By March 1915, a two-seater on "artillery observation" duties was typically equipped with a primitive radio transmitter transmitting using Morse code , but had ...

  World War I was the first major conflict involving the large-scale use of aircraft . Tethered observation balloons had already been employed in several wars, and would be used extensively for artillery spotting . Germany employed Zeppelins for reconnaissance over the North Sea and Baltic and also for strategic bombing raids over Britain and the Eastern Front. Aeroplanes were just coming into military use at the outset of the war. Initially, they were used mostly for reconnaissance . Pilots and engineers learned from experience, leading to the development of many specialized types, including fighters , bombers , and trench strafers . Ace fighter pilots were portrayed as modern knights, and many became popular heroes. The war also saw the appointment of high-ranking officers to direct the belligerent nations' air war efforts. While the impact of aircraft on the course of the war was mainly tactical rather than strategic, most important being direct cooperation with gro...