I heard these terms thrown around in fighter jet communities alot, and I have a basic understanding of what the differences are (I.E turn fighters are able to turn tighter while energy fighters preserve kinetic energy while turning). But I’m still not sure what characteristics inherent in the plane turns a plane into a turn fighter vs an energy fighter. For example, the F/A-18 and F-14 and Su-27 are all considered turn fighters, while the F-16 and F-15 are energy fighters, but they’re all so different in size and design.
In: Engineering
The two types of combat aircraft are normally fighter and interceptor, not heard of someone calling a plane an energy fighter before. The fighters role is to tangle with other aircraft and shoot them down, fighters may have limited range and instead use maximum speed and turning to defeat other aircraft. An interceptor covers a wide area and will deny this area to enemy aircraft by intercepting them before they reach the target, this require that from take off they reach speed and altitude quickly, but also have the range both in the aircraft and missiles to shoot down the enemy in their zone, though the interceptor can dogfight that isn’t their main role, instead it is to knock down as many of the enemy as quickly as possible normally with longer range missiles and may not even visually see the opposition.
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