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
It’s an outdated term which was mostly used to refer ww2 to early cold war fighter
Basically, turn fighter cant move as fast as energy fighter, so they compensates it by having higher maneuverability. For example, spitfire, Zero, p39, g91
An energy fighter is the oppoaite of turn fighter. They usually heavy, and can go fast. So they climb, and then dive. They trade their potential energy to kinetic energy. They then use the leftover speed to climb back up. For example p47, fw 190, typhoon, f104
In modern combat, trying to assign the role of turn or energy fighter is a poor choice because modern air combat rely more on bvr (beyond visual range) capability rather than maneuverability. Imagine shooting missiles from 30-60 miles away. If you managed to somehow get into a close range dogfight with modern fighter, then there’s something that went terribly wrong on your tactics
That’s why you can see a a10 with f22 kill mark, since the f22 is ill suited for close quarter fight. And an a10 can easily out turn a f22 in a turn fight
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