What is a nth Generation fighter?

I'm sure you could lump those in there as well. There has to be some
*formal*
convention where this is spelled out no?

Isn't *he* the optimist!

Wll, common sense would dictate, the way people (important people) throw these
terms around, that you would be able to open a book and read what attributes
make up a 3rd generation fighter. For example, I thought Look-Down/Shoot-Down
radar technology was an attribute of a 4th generation fighter?


BUFDRVR

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I'm sure you could lump those in there as well. There has to be some
*formal*
convention where this is spelled out no?

Isn't *he* the optimist!

Wll, common sense would dictate, the way people (important people) throw these
terms around, that you would be able to open a book and read what attributes
make up a 3rd generation fighter. For example, I thought Look-Down/Shoot-Down
radar technology was an attribute of a 4th generation fighter?

The cynic in me says "the Marketing Department define it and the highest
generation is what they're trying to sell; the next generation down is
anything they can't underbid".

So, some US marketeers would have you believe that the only 4th or 5th
generation fighter is the F/A-22. Others would insist the F-35 counts
too. Eurofighter would claim that supercruise (also a contentious
definition), sensor fusion, networked capability et al is the definition
so they qualify, and then Dassault complain that the Rafale ought to be
in there too... then LockMart go back to muttering that only stealth
makes a top-generation fighter and the argument starts over again.

Does going supersonic count as a generation shift? That might or might
not take you from F-86/MiG-15/Hunter to F-100/MiG-19 territory. Third
generation got more significantly multirole and had some all-weather
capability as routine, rather than handing the mission over to aircraft
like Starfires (F-4s, MiG-23s).

Then you get into "what's the next step"? A F-15 is a clear step up on a
F-4 in ACM, but (in the -A and -C mods) is single-role: the F-4 is
all-weather, BVR and Mach 2, the Eagle is "same but better" except it
doesn't multirole. Does that qualify as a generation or an increment?

Similarly, is there really a generation between a F-86 and a F-100,
given that both were designed as guns-only dayfighters (and both could
carry Sidewinders once available... and the F-86 was developed into an
all-weather interceptor while the F-100 wasn't). Or for that matter, the
MiG-21/Lightning/F-104/Mirage crowd... which added speed but not much
other capability.




--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk