Fighter!

Fighters are the thoroughbreds of the aviation world — they are agile, fast, lethally armed killers designed to seek out and challenge enemy aircraft and to win superiority of the skies. These are machines that are created to be deadly.
The first fighters appeared in World War I. In those days they looked very different: they were often biplanes, or even triplanes, and their flimsy structures were crafted out of wood, steel tube, bracing wires and fabric. Armed with machine-guns, they took part in the first aerial combats in the skies high above the trenches of France.
By World War II the technology had changed. These new fighters were streamlined monoplanes usually made of aluminium alloy. Engines of 150 horsepower had given way to powerplants of ten times that power, and machine-guns were replaced by heavy shell-firing cannon. This conflict gave rise to some of the greats of fighter history — Spitfire, Mustang, Bf 109, Zero...
At the end of the war the jet engine swept away previous limitations on speed, opening the way for the design of new, aerodynamic fighter aircraft capable of flying faster than sound, while the development of guided-missile technology armed the fighter with a new generation of weapons.
Today's fighters are packed with incredible electronic systems, and can fire lethal missiles at hostile aircraft beyond the horizon 200km (125 miles) away. Top-secret 'Stealth' technology is now being developed to make the fighters of tomorrow virtually undetectable to enemy radar. This vividly-illustrated book traces the history of the world's greatest fighters from World War I to the present day and provides a colourful and informative tribute to these fantastic aircraft.


by Bill Gunston
Published by Parragon 1998 reprint. 96pp profusely illustrated, mostly in colour, index. 24x30 mint, including d/j.






Note:
"Long" descriptions, where shown, may have been taken from the book's dust jacket notes, and as such are relevant to the date of publication (e.g. any references to "previously unpublished photographs" etc.) and not the present.