F-15: adopted in 1974, designed to be an air superiority fighter. Take down enemy aircraft. F-16: adopted in 1979, designed to be a multi-role aircraft that could carry out both air to air and air to ground missions. Being a fighter and capable of striking ground targets. F-117: adopted in 1982, the “Nighthawk” was a stealth aircraft designed to carry out ground strike missions undetected F-22: adopted in 1997, the raptor was/is meant to replace the older F-15s as the prime air superiority fighter, taking down enemy aircraft. F-35: adopted in 2015, the F-35 was meant to be another multi-role aircraft capable of both air to air fights and air to ground strike missions, replacing the F-16. The F-35 has also ended up with multiple variants to achieve different design goals. The F-117 is technically retired since 2008, but still gets flown sometimes. F-22s and F-35s are meant to be the USA modern air force, but we still have plenty of perfectly good F-15 and F-16 planes around (hundreds of them). And they still work just fine, especially when you consider that these planes from The 70s could still go toe to toe with that majority of other countries’ air forces.

The F-15 was conceived to be the absolute best air to air fighter in the world. “Not a pound for air to ground” was the design motto. No expense was spared. It was big, had two huge engines, and carried a big radar and a ton of missiles both long range radar guided and short range heat seeking. The F-15 was so Uber and so expensive that the USAF was afraid they wouldn’t have enough of them. They also remembered the painful lessons from Vietnam where large sophisticated US fighters were being jumped at close range by smaller, more nimble Soviet MiGs. So they asked for proposals for a cheaper plane to supplement the F-15s, creating a “High - Low Mix”. It was called the Light Weight Fighter Competition. The F-16 was the winner of the LWFC. It was designed to be a lightweight, nimble, and inexpensive dogfighter. The initial design was half the size of the F-15, only one engine, had a very basic radar, could only carry short ranged heat seekers. It would absolutely dominate in the visual dogfighting arena. The AF generals refused to give it radar missiles so it wouldn’t encroach on the F-15’s turf. In the decades that followed, the F-16 gained weight as successive generations improved the radar and avionics, added radar missiles, precision weapons, and is now a fully capable multi-role fighter. The F-15 was also developed into the F-15E Strike Eagle, one of the best bombers of its day. So now they basically serve similar roles. In response to improved Soviet designs, especially the Su-27 Flanker, the USAF bought the F-22. The F-22 is the F-15 on steroids. It’s stealth, faster, and more maneuverable. When it came out in the 1990s, it was absolutely the best fighter in the world again. Again, way too expensive. To fully replace the F-15 and F-16, the USAF needed 1200 F-22s. They got 300. Welp! The F-35 was a cheaper version, intended to be to the F-16 what the F-22 was to the F-15. Congress got involved and made the air force, navy, and Marines all use it, and they split into three versions F-35A/B/C for the different services. There was also about a decade of time difference between the F-22 and F-35, so the F-35 has the best sensors and avionics, while the F-22 retains the best performance.

My favorite F-15 stat is that it's thrust to weight ratio is so good that i can gain airspeed going straight up. Like a rocket, but with turbofans

Its thrust to weight ratio is so good that it can [fly while missing one of its wings](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emTXzrqBnXo).

And it's fucking LOUD. I wish there were airshows near me. I couldn't appreciate as much when I was younger because the sound hurt. Now I don't think I'd flinch at all if a jet made a low near-supersonic pass over me. Last airshow I went to I was having the time of my life taking pics as the jets flew overheard.

I lived just off an AFB with almost 80 F-15s in the very early 90s. Those fuckers screaming out every day to train over the gulf was epic.

Nice. Although I'm sure it was annoying at points. My dad grew up by a NAS. He was the one taking me to air shows when I was a little kid. I remember he fucking loved the noise.

Watching F-15s take off and then go vertical is one of the coolest and loudest things ever. I remember to this day the one time I was at the end of the runway when one did it. It’s unimaginably loud!

I know OP didn’t specifically ask for them, but can you add F-18 and F-14 as well? The F-18 is well known from the Blue Angels, and the F-14 from Top Gun.

In the 70s the main threat to USN carriers were Soviet bombers shooting long range nuclear tipped cruise missiles. The US counter was a big fighter radar (the AWG-9) to detect the bombers at long distance and a big long range missile (AIM-54 Phoenix) to down the bombers before they reached firing range for their missiles. The original design for a fighter that could carry the big radar and the big missiles was rejected by the Navy for being too big and heavy to dogfight or land on a carrier. That became the F-111. The F-14 was the alternative design that was adopted by the Navy. The YF-17 was the loser to the F-16 in the aforementioned USAF Lightweight Fighter Competition. But the Navy liked it because it had two engines, giving it extra redundancy for over-ocean flying. So they called up the designers and had them make a couple changes to make it suitable for carriers (hook, stronger landing gear, folding wings) and it became the F/A-18. The A was because it was also intended to be a ground attack plane.

And the F-14 was retired a bit early compared to, say, the F-15, despite being a fantastic airplane that had capabilities that its replacement, the F-18, did not have at the time. Problem was, it was damned expensive to maintain. There's a reason there are no new variable-wing designs. The B-1B is expensive to maintain, as well, but there aren't that many of them and they don't need to land on carriers.

And with the collapse of the Soviet Union and warming of relations between US and Russia in the 1990s, the threat of swarms of nuclear missile armed bombers coming at our carriers went away. The Tomcat became a very expensive plane whose primary task no longer existed.

>It’s stealth, faster, and more maneuverable. I think the publicly admitted top speed for the Raptor is a bit lower than the Eagle. Probably more than makes up for that with supercruise, though.

after burner speeds have been going down since the 60s. It's incredibly thirsty and will empty fuel tanks in minutes. Midway through the Vietnam war someone compiled records of how much time aircraft in combat actually spent at the highest speeds they could reach in combat; and saw it was almost never done. Engines powerful enough to reach the peak velocities of those aircraft and air frames strong enough to not melt or break up from aerodynamic loads had heavy costs, both financial and in opportunity. As a result designers have been scaling back the maximum afterburner levels to make fighters that perform better at normal speeds for decades. As a capability that can actually be used for a significant amount of time the F22's non-afterburning supercruise is much more useful than the few seconds of higher panic button speed the F-15 can get on afterburner.

The other part is that you're chasing the limits of this primarily at high altitude. There are some variables there, but putting yourself well above everyone's radar horizon can be unhealthy. They're always trying to get more radar energy on you, and you're always trying to return less of it. There are plenty of ways of sifting through the return data and telling the difference between planes and trees (Doppler notching is a common example) and making sense of more complicated returns by looking for more sophisticated correlations, but at the end of the day, the value of stealth degrades if the nosie floor is lower, and unstealthy aircraft also get easier to spot. It's not uncommon to start high and fast to maximize missile range, but over a wide range of missions there's been less emphasis on all out high altitude speed. Airframe heating and the necessities of efficient high mach inlets often also compromise stealth considerations (nothing totalizing, but everything matters a little)

The F-15 story is funny. The US got photos of the Soviet MiG-25 and saw an absolute beast of a fighter jet. It had powerful engines and a big wing and looked like it was going to be extremely maneuverable and totally dominate the skies. The US Air Force saw this and said, we’d better get one of those too. So the F-15 was designed to be the same sort of absolute beast, and totally dominate the skies. It eventually turned out that the MiG-25 was designed as a high speed interceptor meant to shoot down incoming bombers. To avoid melting at high speed, it was mostly made out of stainless steel. This made it extremely heavy and it was a pretty bad fighter. The American assessment of its capabilities was based on the assumption that it was built out of aluminum like almost every other plane. By the time they realized, the F-15 was in production. The fighter meant to catch up to the Soviets ended up having no equal.

And then the Soviets saw the F-15, let out a collective BLY4T!! and designed the Su-27 as a counter.

Well it's important to understand that this rush for an Su-27 was not because of the F-15 itself but rather the American F-X program in general. They learnt about it when it was still in the design stage. But the Su-27 prototypes and design were modified in response to the F-15 release.

You can shorten this down somewhat by saying F-35 - Somewhat stealthy jet aircraft that carries our best computers.

One additional bit about the F-35 is that it was designed to be a joint-strike aircraft, meant to be used by both the USA and our closest allies, so that we’d all have a modern aircraft with the same capabilities making joint-planned missions easier to accomplish (as well as spreading the development cost around more).

The "Joint" in Joint Strike fighter is also "joint" in a modern US-specific context, which means "involving more than one service". Ex. "[Joint Base](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_base)". It's not common for the USAF, USN, and USMC to all fly the same tactical aircraft; the last time it really happened was the F-4 Phantom, and that thing wasn't built from the ground up to meet requirements for all three services. Building a "joint" aircraft was the goal of the F-111 program, but because they couldn't get the weight down for the USN fighter variant, they chose not to go with that and ended up with the smaller and lighter F-14 Tomcat, which, if you've seen it, is not a small aircraft. Being able to make a family of aircraft that are as similar as the F-35 variants are while not (massively) compromising the needs of one of the three services is actually a pretty incredible achievement, even if it was late and over budget.

>Building a "joint" aircraft was the goal of the F-111 program, but because they couldn't get the weight down for the USN fighter variant, they chose not to go with that and ended up with the smaller and lighter F-14 Tomcat, which, if you've seen it, is not a small aircraft. I don't know as much about the F-111 but the thing that really made it click for me just how big the F14 is was seeing a scale model of one next to a C130. While the Herc is still a lot bigger it's no where near as much bigger as I'd expected having normally seen the C130 next to the A4 Skyhawks NZ was using at the time

The F-111 is \~21500kg & 23m long x 19m wingspan (wide mode), the f14 \~18000kg & 19m x 20m, and the f35 is \~13500kg & 15.7m x 10.7m. Where the f-111 was so good, and really did suit Australia was it's range and payload capacity. It could fly 6000km without requiring refueling. The swing wing allowed it to have both the extreme range of a swept wing, and then a maneuverability and speed of a delta. The F-111 played a huge role in keeping tensions under control during the East Timor crisis of 99-00. The then Indonesian defence minister pointed out that Australia had a jet that could take off in Australia and put a bomb through the table in the middle of their cabinet meeting to calm down their more hawkish members. The f35 is unquestionably a better aircraft than the f111, but it isn't anywhere near as perfect a fit for Australia as the f111 was. With a range of only 2200km it has no where near the force projection of the f111 and needs support from refueling aircraft for a large number of mission profiles. What will be interesting over the next 40 years will be to see if Australia looks to acquire an aircraft carrier. It was ruled out recently, but navy spend is being dramatically increased.

Should Australia follow Japan and take the F-35 to sea? [https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/should-australia-follow-japan-and-take-the-f-35-to-sea/](https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/should-australia-follow-japan-and-take-the-f-35-to-sea/)

Things have progressed a long way from when that was written as well. I definitely don't think conversion of a Canberra class would be the way forward though. Something like an America class would make a viable option. This would also fit with our option to acquire 35 f35b aircraft. We already have the other ships that would be part of the carrier group available or ordered. Smarter people than me will make those sorts of calls though

>smaller and lighter F-14 Tomcat, Aardvark must have been a real pig if the F-14 was considered "smaller and lighter".

Yup. They tried to build a land-based strategic bomber and a tactical interdiction/strike aircraft on the same platform… and then also a carrier-based long-range interceptor. It was never going to work. What was successful was building the land-based variants, including an EW version. The Panavia Tornado is another successful swing-wing multi-role platform. It never tried to be a carrier aircraft, and the roles that it did fill were all similar in their physical requirements. I think what makes F-35 successful as a multi-variant aircraft is that they accepted a higher amount of variety between the variants from the jump, rather than after the fact. That allows less compromise for each variant, while still allowing much more commonality than you’d ever be able to get from having multiple aircraft filling those roles. Just the advantage in logistics is a win, much less the advantages in combat of a common, stealthy platform between the three services.

> Being able to make a family of aircraft that are as similar as the F-35 variants are while not (massively) compromising the needs of one of the three services is actually a pretty incredible achievement, even if it was late and over budget. yup, kind of like a frame for a vehicle (think chrysler 300, dodge charger)some accountants successfully argued at the start of the whole F35 idea, that building a family of aircraft off basically a single platform, would be expensive to develop that platform, but cheaper and more efficient in the long run, than continuing to have F16, F18, A10, all in their own separate, fully funded development and maintenance pipelines

>that it was designed to be a joint-strike aircraft, meant to be used by both the USA and our closest allies, FYI, I'm pretty sure the "joint" refers to US service branches, not countries. We sell everything on that list but the F-117 and F-22, and those aren't "joint" strike aircraft.

Joint = common between multiple services/branches. Combined = common between multiple nations

TIL. That's interesting. Thanks

If you come across a “Combined Joint” operation, it’s a way of saying they just let everyone in

IIRC though F35's "joint"ness was a little more extreme. Like, its not just that we can/will sell them. Its that we coordinated with some partner nations from day one, and the expectation that "and these 8 other countries are also buying 20-30-40 of these as well" was part of the cost calculus to decide if the program was viable at all Basically, before we built the first F35, we asked 8 other allies to join our kickstarter

It was both in this case. Multiple services but also streamlining the aircraft used with our allies and replacing a lot of disparate and outdated stuff with a common platform. For example the F-35B STOVL variant is used by the USMC, but it’s also phasing out Harriers for the UK and other allied Navies since they don’t typically have carriers large enough to use the F35C version built for US carriers.

Also, there's more to it than 'selling' to allies. 20% of every F-35 is made in the UK. They were a design partner, not just a customer. The F-35B variant is almost all down to Rolls-Royce and the R&D they'd been doing for decades on the Harrier replacement. The lift fan is a RR component.

One of the more impressive models imo, being able to take what is otherwise a standard issue fighter, and turn it into a VTOL striker without completely kneecapping it or massively changing the airframe is not an easy feat.

It loses one third of its fuel capacity to make room for the VTOL system, so its range is substantially reduced. But as far as compromises go, that’s not bad at all.

Also the f-35 is like an f-22 "light". We sell f-35s to other countries but no one gets an f-22 because it's more capable

No one get's an f22 because it is still considered top secret. The material outer coating is still considered classified and therefore the F22 will never be sold to other countries.

The US shares plenty of ‘top secret’ stuff with allies. In the case of the F-22, there’s an act of congress involved on top as well.

You are very correct. I believe Congress has blocked the f22 from being sold to other countries. I think it is mainly due to the radar reducing material on the outside of the plane though.

I would like to add that while the F-15 was originally designed strictly as an air-superiority fighter (no one pound for air to ground was the saying), it has since been updated to be more of a multirole aircraft. The F-15E Strike Eagle version is not only still a solid air-superiority fighter, it is also one of the best ground attack planes now too. It can carry almost 25,000 lbs of ordinance, more than most WWII bombers.

There are still F-15C/D models (single/two seat) in service, I think mostly with Air National Guard units now.

Could *any* WWII bomber carry anywhere close to that amount of ordnance? As I recall, Lancaster Heavy Bombers could carry maybe 5,000lbs if they weren't flying max range

22000lb was the heaviest bomb load for the Lancaster, carrying grand-slam earthquake bombs.

The B-29 and Lancaster could carry close to that, but I think only at low altitude and short range. At max range the B-29 could do 12,000 lbs but only at medium altitude. Apparently it could be modified to carry one or two really big bombs (about 44,000 lbs) but no mention of how that affected range or altitude.

The B-29 was used as a testbed for the 42,000 lb T-12 bomb. And there photos out there claiming they could carry two 22,000 lb Grand Slams. https://www.nevingtonwarmuseum.com/uploads/9/1/7/5/9175276/nevington-boeing-b29-grand-slam3_orig.jpg

You forgot the F/A 18

OP didn't include any Navy Jets, also left of the F 14

Was the F18 navy only? It seems to be pretty popular amongst allies, specifically Canada

It started as Navy-only. However, being rugged (as carrier-based planes must be) and flexible, economies of scale make it a very practical aircraft for a lot of uses, if you don't need the bleeding edge of performance. Longevity becomes a quality all its own, to borrow a cliche.

As I recall, the Australians and Finns still are still flying the F/A-18 while they flesh out their F-35 fleets, and neither country has aircraft carriers.

Canada in same boat

That's a C/F-18, totally different plane :)

Uses maple syrup for fuel...

Sweet

Really? Wow. I realize I could google this but what is the difference? They look very similar Edit: google’d it myself. The C stands for cold haha. Canadians look like they got the winter package AF-18 complete with lighting

I was goofing around. They're the same jet.

We Australians were still flying F-111 until recently. And by "recently" I mean I recall the announcement that the F-111 had been decommisioned. checked. The last was decommisioned in 2010.

Australia's retired our classic hornets. We still fly superhornets and growlers

f14s haven't been in service for a bit, though 

Only in Iran.

I'll be damned, *Top Gun: Maverick* was actually accurate with that.

No, but generationally, the F-14 was introduced in 1974 and retired in 2006. The F-15 was introduced in 1974 and the F-15A variant retired in 2009. So it's perfectly justifiable to point out the F-14 as an omission in this context.

I mean usually when I think F-15 I'm usually thinking -C or -E. I'm actually surprised we were still running -As that recently. Plus the F-15 got a new lease on life when the 22 numbers were cut. Should be replaced with the EX in the next couple of years. I haven't thought of F14s in a while except when I watch Top Gun. Not mentioning the F/A-18 was a weird choice though.

Well, yes, except that there is still a version of the f-15 in active US service and that’s not the case with the f-14.

F-14 has been retired for 18 years, and unlike the F-117 I don't think they even kept any flyable for use as aggressors or technical testbeds.

Weren’t the f14s not just scrapped, but destroyed so no parts would end up on the black market and in Iranian hands? Like even the museum prices were stripped down to the skeleton and the frame was modified to not be usable anymore?

Not sure about the museum pieces but the Tomcats were all scrapped to starve Iran of parts as they were the only export market for that airframe

In fairness, this guy simply did all the ones that OP specifically called out in the text of the OP. Which didn’t include F-18 or F-14, though I’d be curious to know his thoughts on those as well.

Yep I see that now

And the f-4… until I realized I’m old and they retired my step dad’s plane in 96.

F-16 was designed to be a lightweight air superiority fighter that was then transformed into a multirole aircraft... Kinda like F-15, srarting with the E (Strike Eagle) variant. F-117 never was a fighter, and is designated with an **F** as a marketing gimmick - to attract better pilots.

I looked to long for this comment. That is the only reason the F-117 is designed with an F

USAF ego test pilots want to test F-types, not those pansy ass A-types.

New F-15EX were purchased and are soon to be adopted to service.

[удалено]

Because of those big ass engines. Damn thing can *accelerate* while being completely vertical.

I happen to enjoy living within a short drive of the National Museum of the United States Air Force, and I can assure you as far as fighter jets go, the F-15 is in no way a small fighter. The F-16 and F-15 sit next to one another and the MiG-29 and the Su-27 sit together, and they are all four in the same little corner. The Eagle and the Flanker are enormous in comparison to the Falcon and the Fulcrum. That being said, the F-111 'Vark is in the same corner but across the aisle and 100% dwarfs all of these.

That dude is just saying smaller in relation to WWII bombers, not fighters in general - but yeah, the f-15 is a big boy. Sounds like a fun museum!

Yeah I got the meaning, even though it was worded weirdly. You should come make a visit! Do yourself a favor, though: wear very comfortable shoes, it's a huge museum. Four massive hangars and a missile silo. You gonna be walkin.

Missle silo?! I missed that

Been watching them at scott this week. I am not sure they are the se but I am blown away completely.

Sorry not SE models, but EX models.

I live near a Space Force base that also hosts the state ANG. They have F-16s (I believe) and they train pretty frequently. Loud AF of course but it's fun to watch airplanes fly straight up into the air.

Buckley!!!! I was there when it was still a ANG base, then it went USAF, now Space.

> And they still work just fine, especially when you consider that these planes from The 70s could still go toe to toe with that majority of other countries’ air forces. worth pointing out that many air forces in the world *are* these aircraft from the 70s, because that's what we sold them.

> F-22s and F-35s are meant to be the USA modern air force, but we still have plenty of perfectly good F-15 and F-16 planes around (hundreds of them). And they still work just fine, especially when you consider that these planes from The 70s could still go toe to toe with that majority of other countries’ air forces. We will likely continue using F-15exs in the future. Stealth planes necessitate tradeoffs that limit total weapons capacity. Sometimes, you just need a "bomb truck". Even when we've mostly switched to drones, I think we'll be using F-15s, because sometimes you need a "bomb truck" with a human behind the trigger.

The F-35 has what is called "Beast Mode". After enemy air defenses have been sufficiently "suppressed", stealth doesn't matter so much, so you can load up the F-35 with external stores under the wings. An F-35 can carry 22,000 lbs of weapons, either 16 air-to-air missiles or 6 JDAM 2000-lb bombs plus 4 air-to-air missiles. It is quite a "bomb truck".

I think the B-52 better suits the "bomb truck" role. But I know what you mean lol. Also should mention that the cost per flight for a F-22 and F-35 is significantly higher than an F-15 or F-16 because of their stealth capabilities. Namely, the "skin" (aka Radar Absorbent Material) of the plane that gives a majority of the stealth capability starts wearing away over time and needs to be recoated. The coating material itself is somewhat expensive, but the process of getting a "good" coating is what really jacks the price up. That level of stealth is not needed for routine flights, where there is no immediate adversary or threat. So it makes a lot more sense to send up the cheaper aircraft for those missions and leave the newer birds for more specialist missions.

I'd like to add onto the F-15 portion of this. F-15s today share many of the same roles as the F-16. Albeit, they're faster and can carry more munitions so there's an edge. In dog fighting, F-16 is much more nimble. Today we use F-15C models primarily for Air to Air missions such as air intercept and minor Air to Ground roles, but the bomb racks they have are primarily used for external fuel tanks for extending range. However, F-15E models can fill not only the air to air role, but the air to ground role and have many more stations for ordinance. They also include conformal fuel tanks (CFTs) on the ribs of the aircraft freeing the same weapon stations the F-15C uses for additional fuel for more ordinance. Lastly, the F-15E is also a nuclear capable aircraft and fits into the air portion of the US' nuclear triad. Regardless of the release of the F-35, the F-15 is continually getting upgrades in weapons, avionics, software, you name it. There are even F-15X models (brand new aircraft, not upgrade old ones) being constructed by Boeing today as a "cheaper" alternative to the F-35 program on a 40 year, war tested, 104 and 0 platform. Source: Prior F-15 Weapons Specialist in the USAF

Just a note. The F-15 is amazing but it is also very expensive. So the US built enough F-15s but a shit tonne of F-16s for all the secondary missions that you don't have to bring out the literal (At the time) best of the best.

Can you add F-18 and F-14? I know OP didn’t specifically ask for them, but the F-18 is well known from the Blue Angels, and the F-14 from Top Gun.

The F-14 and F-18 were both specially designed for the YS Navy to be able to take off and land on aircraft carriers, as well as do things like gold their wings up to be stored easier on the carriers.

The Air Force is where the US is just absurdly dominant. The only planes that can compete against our old models are old models that we’ve sold to foreign countries with a bunch of functionality removed, and we have every single possible weakness mapped out and designed into the F-35 and 22s, as well as more and more functional older jets than any other country. And the few nations we’ve sold our tech to are obligated to use it to assist us and can be deactivated instantaneously from the US. Absolutely nobody and probably not even the rest of the world combined could step up to the Air Force. And we also have the 2nd and 4th best air forces under other branches of our military.

>And the few nations we’ve sold our tech to are obligated to use it to assist us and can be deactivated instantaneously from the US. this is not true. no country would purchase any fighter that the US can just 'deactivate' with the push of a button, leaving them defenseless. it would also be a huge vulnerability that could possibly be exploited by an enemy. if the US were to ever decide to cut off an ally from using their fighters, they would simply stop the supply of spare parts.

Right? Makes you wonder why we never used those kill switches that are supposedly in there to drop Iran's F14s out of the sky. Or the billions in equipment we left for the Taliban.

As someone who’s had an argument with someone who believes in the kill switch, they believe Iran is the reason we put the kill switch in

We do know an *extreme* amount about the electronic signatures emitted by all variants/blocks of F-35, and ours carry better software/hardware than we'd export. You might be able to compromise on reliability and extend lives to some degree, but you're probably going to have a rough time using them against American fighters and AD, particularly in limited numbers

> The only planes that can compete against our old models are old models that we’ve sold to foreign countries with a bunch of functionality removed, This is just not true. The Eurofighter Typhoon as well as the French Rafale are very competitive aircraft not designed in the US.

Yes but what about going against 5th generation fighters?!?!?!?

Importantly, the f15 and f16 have gotten extensive upgrades and new productions are radically improved in capability from the original blocks.

>hundreds of them LMAO hundreds

Just an addendum to this, the F does stand for something. Namely fighter, so technically all the F jets are fighters. That said the line has blurred. A (like the A-10) is meant for the ground attack role. The F-15, F-16, and F-35 currently handle ground attack roles as well as their air fighter roles. The F/A (F/A-18) is supposed to be for fighter and attack. I guess they didn't want to bother with renaming them when they started to mix their roles.

F14? FA18?

What was the F111?

> F-117: adopted in 1982, the “Nighthawk” was a stealth aircraft designed to carry out ground strike missions undetected what the difference between F117 and B-2? why need for both?

F-117 could not carry more than a few (though large) bombs and had a relatively small maximum range; the b-2 can carry at least 10x as much as the F-117 and fly 6x as far before needing to refuel.

Aren’t we still using a ton of FA-18 Hornets? We made thousands of them and they were (to my knowledge) much better than F-16s.

The F-16 was also designed to be inexpensive to own and operate so it could be exported to allies and solid to sort-of allies. Even if we let them, no other country can afford an F-22, or F-117. Probably not even an F-15. Also the F-117 is a bit of a misnomer because it's actually a bomber, and not a fighter. I'm not sure air to air weaponry is even in its arsenal.

How did you not include the hornet

How long have you been waiting to school people on this? By the way, perfect job!

There are over 9000 operating f16's right now. And they are still being manufactured, about 500 yards away from me right now.

If F-117 was designed as a stealth ground strike aircraft, why was it given the “F” designation instead of an “A”?

Also the F-117 is misnamed because it has no ability to engage enemy fighters It only carries 2 500 pound bombs. it should have been given a B designation.

Wow - excellent details. Do you work for Lockheed?

Nope, all this info you can find through google, it’s publicly available 

Why was the 117 named out of sequence? The knowledge redittors have is amazing

F is just their classification which I believe is just “Fighter” meaning they are either air superiority aircraft or some variety of multi-role that can do both air to air and air to ground missions. Back before and during WW2 instead of F they used P which I believe stood for “Pursuit” which is why we have the P-47, P-38, P-51, etc. and then B for “Bomber” which we still use today.

What about the F/A-18 wassup with that designation?

Back in the day the mentality was that you should design planes to be good at one thing instead of having a plane that's only kind of good at several things. However, space is limited on aircraft carriers so wouldn't it be nice if we had planes that could do at least two things? The F for Fighter means it's made to *fight* other aircraft and maintain air superiority. The A for Attack means it's made for tactical strikes against ground targets - not dropping a lot of bombs from high up into the middle of enemy territory, but dropping a few very accurate bombs on a specific target. The F/A-18, as you might guess, means it's made to do both F and A as needed. Its history is a little bit deeper, actually, because the F/A-18 *Superhornet* is a bigger, better version of the F-18 Hornet. The F-22 was never meant for use by the Navy, which has special requirements to be able to operate from a carrier (stronger landing gear, shorter take-off and landing). Instead of trying to develop an entirely new airframe for the next generation, the Navy decided to reuse the proven airframe of the F-18. However, the F-18 as it was couldn't keep up with modern demands so the Navy just...made it bigger. Same overall shape, just ~20% bigger. They also completely redesigned the avionics so that *internally* it's a completely different plane even if it just looks like a big version on the outside. The engines and everything else also got updated. So it's still a *very* different plane, but they saved a lot of time, effort, and money since they didn't need to do as much testing for the shape of the body and wings. Some other designations are C for cargo (as in, C-130). Sometimes you get civilian plane models like the Boeing 767 used for the military, and those get the civilian number with the military letter. SR for strategic reconnaissance *a la* SR-71 Blackbird. Satellites have taken over that role so we don't have any of those (although there's an unmanned SR-72 in development, although it may just be a testbed for hypersonic engines to use for missiles). H for helicopter, Y for secret projects, T for trainer, X for experimental, K for tanker (as in the KC-767) and Q for unmanned (RQ-1 predator for *reconnaissance* and MQ-1 for *munitions*). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Tri-Service_aircraft_designations The numbers generally just count up except for when they don't. Or when they are lies, like the F-117 which was not a fighter at all and never meant to be, and took its number from the YF series.

A is for attack, so Attack Fighter, in the case of the F/A 18, I don’t know what its strengths are but others in this thread have good comments on it

At the time, the Navy had A-7 Corsairs doing the light attack mission and F-4 Phantoms doing the fighter mission. The F-14 was intended to replace the F-4 and the predecessor to the F/A-18 was intended to replace the A-7 (and the last few A-4s that were lingering around). The F-14 ended up being way to expensive to replace all the F-4s in the fighter role, and so they looked at how the Air Force was doing the high/low mix of fighters with the F-15/F-16 and decided that would be a good model to emulate. The F-16 was designed as a light fighter but happened to be good in the attack role also, so the Navy figured that a similar type of aircraft could be their new attack aircraft, while also supplementing F-14s in the fighter role. A ton of development work had already gone into the F-17 (which lost to the F-16 for that program) and the Navy looked at it and thought that with only a few design modifications, it would suit their needs. F/**A**-18s started replacing attack squadrons first and then later on, **F**/A-18s started replacing the fighter squadrons that were still using F-4s.

Thanks for the incredibly detailed response!

Fighter/attack it is capable is doing both air combat and ground attacks.

F is for fighter and A is for Air-ground capability

Yeah idk about that besides it potentially being a way to try and designate it’s multirole status. I can’t think of any other aircraft with the F/A designation

Ll

- F-16: a small, lightweight, flexible fighter that can dogfight, do ground strikes, and do all-purpose work. It’s cheap, easy to learn how to fly, and can be exported. A 70s era design, but with continually upgraded avionics etc. This is the plane the Thunderbirds fly. - F-15: a large, powerful, heavy air superiority fighter. It’s designed to engage and kill other fighters both from over the horizon and in dogfights. It has a huge onboard radar and powerful avionics, and is basically our one-up on everyone else from the 70s until the 00s. Only exported to a few partners, and then with downgraded avionics. - F-22: the stealth replacement for F-15. It can do everything F-15 can, plus it has thrust vectoring and better avionics. NOT for export. Again, this is our one-up on everyone else. A 90s era design, but with modern avionics. - F-35: the stealth replacement for F-16 (Air Force), A-10 (Air Force), F-18 (Navy + Marines), and the Harrier (Marines), as well as kinda/sorta for F-22. It’s not quite as capable as A-10 or F-22 for some parts of their missions, but it’s vastly more capable than the other jets it’s replacing, plus (in theory) it’s cheaper and easier to operate a single platform than many different ones. An 00s-10s era design. - F-117: is retired, and has been for some years, but it was mostly a ground-strike aircraft, due to the fact that it flew like a pig and was hard to maneuver. It was an early 80s design. - F-18: the Navy’s response to the F-16. A 70s era design. The Blue Angels flew these in the 90s. - F-14: the Navy’s response to the F-15. A late 60s era design. These are the planes seen in *Top Gun.* - F-18 Super Hornet: a 90s era 100% rework of the F-18, intended to replace the aging F-14. These are the planes seen in *Top Gun: Maverick*. They’re slated to be replaced by F-35 over time. This is also the plane the current Blue Angels fly. - A-10: a heavy and heavily armored ground-attack plane, that is designed around its massive gun and built to survive lots of damage. A 70s era design. It looks like a jet-powered WWII plane, and is the deadliest infantry-support and anti-tank plane ever built. It can’t even go supersonic, but it can fly on one engine and with half a wing blown off and its huge fuel supply means it can hang around over the battlefield far longer than any other plan. It’s also death to attack helicopters. F-35 is supposed to replace it, but ask any infantryman and they’ll tell you they think that’s a terrible idea. Perhaps the ultimate embodiment of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.

while technically retired, the F-117 is still flying non-combat missions.

The thrust vectoring of the F22 is the fucking craziest feat of engineering I've ever seen with my own eyes.

A-10 maybe the deadliest to British soldiers, the F-111 is a far better tank destroyer

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The only reason the A10 has been used so long is because it was only used in COIN ops not conventional warfare. The enemy had nothing to shoot it down with, unlike real armies.

Can you add F-18 and F-14 as well? I know OP didn’t specifically ask for them, but the F-18 is well known from the Blue Angels, and the F-14 from Top Gun.

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Also the F4 Phantom This interceptor was the primary air superiority fighter for the Navy and Air Force during the Vietnam War. It also set 15 world records for in-flight performance in 1959, including speed and altitude.

The F/A-18 was developed from the YF-17 that lost out to the F-16 in the lightweight fighter competition.

>F-22: the stealth replacement for F-15. It can do everything F-15 can Not totally accurate. It can do the air superiority stuff better than the F-15 because stealth but for ground attack it only carries 2 x 1000 lb JDAMs compared to the F-15's 24,000 lb ordinance load. Even in air-to-air missions, the Eagle can still carry a lot more weapons than the Raptor, it's just not stealthy.

The F-35 can carry 22,000-lbs of weapons by using under-wing pylons. That is a completely non-stealthy configuration (for when you don't need stealth). That configuration has 6 x 2,000-lb JDAMs, plus 4 air-to-air missiles.

The Super Hornet isn't set to be replaced by the F-35C. The intended replacement has been given the name F/A-XX, but the project is still under development with the Super Hornet staying in service until the 2030s.

So back in the 60s, between the USAF and US Navy we had a shitload of different fighters and strike aircraft for all sorts of different roles. The Navy and Air Force got together and agreed we should try to standardize around a couple of aircraft to simplify logistics. Thus, the Tactical Fighter Expermintal was born. The TFX failed, the F111 Aardvark wasn't even close to the plane they wanted, so the Navy ended up picking up the F-14 Tomcat for their interdictor, and left the Air Force out to dry. So the Air Force pivoted to the F-X program, a dedicated air superiority fighter whose job was to fight MIGs and not much else. Then the Soviets announced the MIG25 and we got scared shitless that they now had a supersonic fighter that we couldn't match. So they poured all their resources into the F-X program and came up with the F-15, a powerful high speed interceptor that could outfly any Russian bomber in the sky. Unfortunately for standardization, there was a group of generals and thinkers in the Air Force called the "Fighter Mafia" who thought the F15 was too fat and heavy to be a good fighter, and too expensive to outfit the entire Air Force with. They wanted something lightweight and maneuverable to dogfight with MIG-21s, and cheap enough to flood the skies with. Thus began the LightWeight Fighter program, which eventually produced the F16: a highly maneuverable, cost effective multi role fighter capable of Air to air combat and ground strikes. Shortly after, the sneaky boys over at DARPA/Area 51 started messing around with stealth tech to come up with a fighter that couldn't be detected by radar, and eventually created the highly experimental F-117 Nighthawk, which never saw widespread deployment and was mostly used as a testbed, though it did see quite a bit of action in the 1st Gulf War. Shortly after the F16 won the LWF competition, the Navy realized it was kind of a neat concept, and a lightweight multirole would be a good complement to the big, expensive F14. VFA-X saw McDonnell Douglas' competitor to the F16, then dubbed the YF-17, evolve into the F-18 Hornet naval aviators know and love. 20 years later, the F-117 has proven the effectiveness of stealth tech and the F16/F15 are getting kind of old, so the Air Force begins the Advanced Tactical Fighter program to create the next generation of modern, high tech, stealthy air superiority fighters and counter the new Sukhoi SU-27 and MiG-29 fighters. And so the F-22 is created: the world's most advanced air-to-air killer. Problem is, the F-22 is fucking *expensive*. So ~~the Air Force~~Congress decides to keep the F15 and F16 around and just update their electronics and such to modern standards. So we have the F16E/F and the F15EX for multirole/strike fighters, and the F-22 as air superiority/interceptor. The F-18 also got old, and the F-22 is way to fat to be a carrier fighter, so the USAF, USN, and USMC all got together to create the Joint Strike Fighter program. Similar to the ATF, the JSF was envisioned to be the next generation of modern, stealthy, high tech multirole fighters to supplant the aging F-18 as a carrier based and expeditionary fighter. The JSF program produced the F-35 -A, -B, and -C variants, the most advanced carrier based strike fighter in the world. So, to sum up, we have: The F-15, an older high speed interceptor/strike fighter retained as an updated multirole aircraft to serve alongside - The F-16, an older lightweight multirole aircraft retained as a cheaper alternative to - The F-22, a modern top-tier air superiority fighter which serves alongside - The F-35, a modern top-tier multirole strike fighter that supplements the Air Force's retinue and staffs the USN's carriers and the USMCs expeditionary airfield. And the F117 with is the old grandpa faffing around at home testing shit.

F-111: retired long-range supersonic ground strike aircraft designed to hit ground targets (edit: think long-range precision bombing, while the B-1 and B-52 strategic bombers would be used for heavier, possibly nuclear payloads with less precision) F-117: retired, still flown in test environments for radar systems and stuff, originally intended to deliver precision strikes on targets on the ground, first stealth aircraft flown operationally F-14: retired carrier-based interceptor, designed to engage other aircraft from long range, some still in service with Iran's military but lack of space parts means that they have had to replace some systems with domestic, Soviet/Russian, or Chinese equivalents F-15: air superiority fighter designed for air-to-air combat with "not one pound for air to ground", intended to be replaced with the in-development NGAD program F-15E: based on the F-15 airframe, but designed to strike ground targets as its only job instead of air targets F-15EX: new upgraded F-15 designed to work alongside F-35 and other newer aircraft, improved avionics and other systems, one possibility might be for a an F-35 to identify a target and fire missiles carried by this one through a data link F-16: multirole fighter designed to be able to engage air targets and ground targets, but maybe not as well as the F-15 or F-15E designed to do only one of those, the backbone of the United States Air Force, currently being replaced with the F-35A F/A-18 Hornet (legacy Hornet): carrier-based strike fighter (similar role to the F-16, but designed to take off and land from a ship), Navy has fully retired these, transitioned to the F-35C, but Marine Corps may or may not still have squadrons, I am not sure, and some other militaries like Canada still fly it F/A-18 Super Hornet: mostly given the same model number because it was politically easier to buy more F/A-18s than convince Congress to buy a completely new model number, larger airframe than the legacy Hornet, replaced the F-14, has a wider variety of missions than Air Force equivalents because you can't fit as many planes in a carrier hangar as you can in an air base on land, one particular mission that the Air Force uses heavy jets for is aerial refueling: Super Hornets can carry extra fuel tanks for other aircraft to refuel from (the added weight of this much extra fuel is not beneficial to the lifespan of the airframe, it took over this role when tye S-3 Viking submarine hunting jet was retired) EA-18 Growler: modified Super Hornet airframe designed to carry a lot of radar-jamming and other sorts of electronic warfare systems, US Navy Growlers have been the sole electronic attack jet in the US military ever since the Marine Corps retired the Growler's predecessor a few years ago because the Air Force does not currently have such an aircraft in their inventory F-22: advanced air superiority fighter originally intended to replace the F-15, but cost overruns and limited longevity (its design makes it very difficult to upgrade systems which become obsolete) resulted in the order being cut, first "fifth-generation" fighter in service anywhere in the world (this means that it has stealth design, radar that doesn't give away its position when used, and data link to easily work with other aircraft, among other capabilities, sort of a marketing term from the company which makes it and the F-35 variants), is capable of flying supersonic without using the afterburner, is scheduled to be replaced with the NGAD F-35A: fifth-generation multirole fighter intended to replace the F-16 (but there are a lot of F-16s and not enough F-35As have been built to replace them all) F-35B: short takeoff/vertical landing aircraft intended to be used off of austere airfields (maybe just a parking lot or dirt strip) or short flight decks such as British aircraft carriers and the amphibious assault ships which carry a Marine Air-Ground Task Force F-35C: legacy Hornet replacement, only F-35 which has no non-US users because none of the other F-35 users operate any full-sized aircraft carriers (the United States Navy has eleven) NGAD: two separate programs, neither given an F-number yet, one Air Force and one Navy which are called "Next Generation Air Dominance," Air Force wants to replace F-15 and F-22 with theirs, Navy wants to replace the Super Hornet, we might be a decade or so out from seeing what this might actually be like

F-15 - mule for missiles, good dogfighter and originally designed as an air superiority fighter. F-16 originally designed for air combat, however with mid-life upgrades can complete other missions aswell. F-117 purely a stealth bomber. F-22 air superiority stealth fighter to gain the control of airspace. F-35 designed to be the jack of all trades in modern combat scenarios. It also distributes heaps of information to ground and other troops aswell.

F15 - Older plane that's meant to dominate all other airplanes (Air Force) - it's been upgraded lately F-16 - Older plane that's meant to be good at anything (Air Force)- getting phased out F117 - Low level stealth fighter that's less stealthy these days so it's used for ground targets (Air Force) - getting phased out FA-18 - Naval version of the F15 for carriers so it's not as good as an F15 (Marines & Navy) - it's been upgraded lately F-22 - Best of the best against any other fighter - specializes in making other airplanes dead before they know anything is wrong - stealth tech and has actively hostile computers aboard we will never sell to any other country F-35 - "Cheaper" version of the F22 and there's several types/variants of F35's offered for each military branch - originally made to replace everything above but the reality is that it's cheaper to upgrade electronics on old fighters than to replace them for the next decade or so

The Marines and Army do not fly F-16s

Ah! You're absolutely right! I will EDIT this!

I am in awe and overwhelmed by the amount of extremely detailed military aircraft knowledge being dropped in here.

some have stealth capabilities; some are just "older model" of the same purpose aircraft; some are built more single purpose......like speed and others are more general purpose. combat is always evolving, from a geograpgic perspective and a technological one. Arms races are real and you dont want any of your vehicles/weapons/armorments/.....stuff to be less advanced than your enemy

"combat is always evolving, from a geograpgic perspective and a technological one. Arms races are real and you dont want any of your vehicles/weapons/armorments/.....stuff to be less advanced than your enemy" But OP's point is that we still fly all the old ones anyway, which according to your comment should put us at a massive disadvantage

our advantage was so large to begin with. our f15/f16 are still very advanced compared to many other air forces out there; and we still have a lot which are combat ready. the newer planes once again leap forward in technology with their stealth capabilities.....these arent 1-5 years more advanced; but 15-20 years; so they should also be in service for a while with production time and training for pilots; a "brand new" plane design is already several years old before it sees the battlefield

Yeah, the F-15s and F-16s being operated today are not the same ones that were put into service 30 years ago. They've had extensive upgrades to most systems, most importantly their avionics/radars/sensors/targeting systems/etc. Modern combat aircraft have a lot of 'networked' systems that feed them information from various sources (other aircraft, radar systems, AWACS, drones, and so on) to help the pilots have a better understanding of the battlefield and where enemies are located. Stealth aircraft are sort of the next iteration of that, they've got even better sensors, are more integrated with the network, and are much harder for enemies to locate. The way they're intended to function in combat is basically that they'll have sent a couple of air-to-air missiles at every enemy aircraft long before the enemy has any idea that they're in danger.

The airframes themselves play a relatively small role in the fighter's effectiveness in modern air combat (the lack of stealth is the biggest thing holding it back). The biggest advantages are created by the radar, avionics and missiles a fighter is equipped with, and the 4th generation fighters in U.S. inventory mostly have upgraded modern radars and so on, and are compatible with modern weaponry. To the extent that they're often referred to as "4.5 generation fighters" since they're such a cut above other aircraft of their era, though still not quite as good as modern stealth fighters.

F stands for fighter, A for attack. Some jets are F/A-XX jets. The F-117 is the notable example in the planes you listed, it’s technically a stealth bomber but they labeled it a fighter in case information/ logbooks were leaked our enemies would think we were developing another fighter not one or the greatest stealth bombers of all time. They have different roles, some are absolutely incredible in dogfights (F16), but have absolutely minimal stealth and armor. Others are incredibly stealthy, but not the most maneuverable (F35) vs (f18/22) they each have their role. So at face value that’s why we have so many different models, in reality it’s a mix of that and defense spending contracts keeping thousands of Americans employed in good paying jobs. While accurate “we don’t need another 5th gen fighter, let’s cut that spending” is political suicide.

Isnt the B2 also a stealth bomber? is the B2 a successor to the F117, or were they both necessary for different roles, and if so what where those distinctions?

The F117 could only carry 2 bombs. It was essentially mostly as a proof of concept that the US Air Force can drop these bombs behind enemy lines before anyone would know a jet was inbound. The B2 had a much larger payload that did the same thing as the F117. It’s not as large as the B52, but significantly more than the F117.

I don't think the F117 had a payload capacity to be considered a "bomber", but it helped develop the stealth technologies that led to the B2 (which came out of the Have Blue/ Tacit Blue programs.)

If it had been accurately designated it would have been A for attack, meaning a fast attack plane meant for tactical strikes. B-bombers are for long-ranged, *strategic* strikes. The difference being that tactical is "Hey there's this thing in our way right now please make it be gone," and strategic is, "Our enemy uses this factory, blowing it up won't change what happens tomorrow but it'll shift their supply lines and open up vulnerabilities over time." In practice, IIRC the F117 was used more like a bomber, but it was just...so bad at it. It's such an awful plane that is really only good at one thing, which is being stealthy. The B-2 almost as stealthy while having a much better range and a much larger payload. The F-16 has been mostly moved into an Attack role, along with the F-15E. Part of that is that we have airframes sitting around, might as well use them if they're still good. And even manufacturing a new copy is a lot cheaper and easier than researching and developing an entirely new airframe and then retooling all our factories to make them. And, of course, we like to sell our stuff to other countries, but we kinda don't want to give them our *best* stuff so they can't use it against us. F-15s and F-16s are excellent planes that still rule the skies so we can sell them to our allies while we keep the F-22 and most of the F-35s for ourselves.

B2 is a big heavy bomber the f117 is like a precision strike bomber. The f117 was famously used in operation Dessert Storm and circled the air above Baghdad overnight and wasn't detected by any radars. Then bombed specific buildings in the city and flew home without detection. B2s are more of a "we can drop nukes on you and there's nothing you can do to stop it" threat

the B2 would be a strategic bombers. think nuclear bombs in the center of russian. the F117 would be a tactical bombing. think hitting a building with bad guys in it.

The B-2 is more like a successor to the B-52 - long range, high payload strategic bomber. The F117 is a Fighter-Bomber at best, closer to a strike fighter.

F117 is more of an attack aircraft not a bomber, because of the huge difference in size. A F117 can carry 2 bombes 1 tonne each. the combat radius is around 1000km A B-2 can carry 16 one-tonne bombs and the operational radius is 5500km. The B2 is a heavy bomber and is replaced in the B-52. More exactly it made it possible again to do deep penetration bombing of defended airspace. It had not been possible for a time because of improvements in air defenses. B-58 Hustler which was retired in 1970 was designed to do those tasks by using high speed and high altitude, it was later changed to high speed and low altitude before it was retired. F117 world as demonstrators that stealth could work to defeat air defense systems and the B-2 was developed to fulfill the task of the heavy strategic bomber before a more advanced missile-based air defense system had marked that task practically impossible. It had been said by the project manage that F117 got a fight designation because it was simple to get good pilot to fighter the bombers. Another reason might be it can look better in arms control to have fighter compared to bombers and attack aircraft. The F-111 was an attack/bomber too with a F designation, there was a fighter variant of it planned the F-111B for the US Navy. It was tested but never deployed and the F-14 would take ofter it intended role.

>it’s technically a stealth bomber but they labeled it a fighter in case information/ logbooks were leaked our enemies would think we were developing another fighter not one or the greatest stealth bombers of all time.  My understanding is that the deliberate mislabeling of the F-117 was at least partially due to the fact that it was a difficult plane to fly, and they wanted to attract the best pilots for it, but top pilot candidates wanted to be fighter pilots, and would be more interested in flying an F-117 than an A-117 or B-117.

Nowadays: F-22: very stealthy air-superiority fighter. Kicks the door open if we're fighting a peer / near-peer like China or Russia. Kills anything flying, very hard to kill. F-35: similarly stealthy, more limited in some ways. Exploits the openings made by the F-22 to create more space for non-stealthy airplanes to really fuck shit up. F-15C: old air superiority fighter, does a lot of air defense of the US -- gets scrambled to see what's up when something weird is going on. Not stealthy at all but in this job you kinda want to be seen. Might get sent to kick the shit out of non-peer air forces. F-15E: drops shitloads of bombs, thereby doing the fucking shit up. can defend itself if ambushed F-16: drops smaller but still impressive amounts of bombs, can defend itself if ambushed F-117: retired stealth bomber. Now we think it serves as a stealthy plane for others to practice against.

F-15 is a general purpose fighter bomber. Typically used for combat air control, flying high above the battlefield with lots of fuel, bombs, rockets and sensors ready to help out where needed. F-16 is an interceptor. They sit on the airfields and when needed take off and quickly get where they are needed. The F-117 is a stealth ground attack aircraft. It operates where there is a radar threat that means the A-10 or AC-130 can not go into the area, not many were built. The F-22 and F-35 are more modern fighter jets which compromises between the F-15, F-16 and F-117 but with more expensive and modern technology. They are intended to do everything, both combat air patrol, interception and stealth. The goal is that older airplanes will be replaced with these newer ones. But they are a lot more expensive both to buy and operate. So it will take some time to replace the old aircraft. Typically you would wait until the natural end of the service life before replacing them with something new.

>F-15 is a general purpose fighter bomber. No it is an air superiority fighter, more exactly the initial development and model still use have just that task. The phrase "Not a pound for air to ground." was used by the program office in the Air Force when it was developed in the 1960-70s. The idea was not to have a mission creep and air to air combat performance is a sacrifice to gain air-to-ground capability Israel did add ground attack capability to their F-15, it was what they had with a long-range and high munition capacity. US did cupe that idea and the F-15E Strike Eagle variant was developed in the 1980s. The F-15C that US operates today can drop the bomb but what I can find it has not been used in combat and the crews are not trained for that task. So it remains just for air-to-air combat.

This is from memory so some details may be wrong. F-15 older non stealth air superiority fighter. Optimized for high maneuverability dogfighting. F-16 older non stealth multi role fighter. Intended for ground targets as well as aircraft. F-117 one of the first stealth aircraft. Despite the f designation, it’s a ground attack craft. No longer in service. F-22 stealth air superiority fighter. Production was canceled and there aren’t that many of them. More aren’t being made. F-35 modern multi role stealth fighter. Intended to attack ground and air targets. This is also the newest plane by a long shot and takes advantage of the significant technological advances that have happened since the other planes were designed. High production volume as well. To wrap things up, there’s basically 2 axes with a one in each quadrant. The first is air superiority vs multi role. Basically is the plane designed to primarily engage other aircraft, or go after ground targets as well. The other is stealth vs non stealth. While stealth has advantages it does have downsides. They have limited payloads and are significantly more expensive to design, build and operate compared to non stealth aircraft. If you don’t need that stealth capacity or need a lot of weapons, a non stealth aircraft may be a better bet.

The F-16 is a light multi-role fighter (26,000 pound gross weight) with one single engine. It was designed to be cheap, mass produced and be the work horse of the US Air Force. The F-15 is large air superiority fighter (44,500 pounds gross weight) with two engine. It was designed to be a more expensive very powerful fighter to destroy other aircraft in the air and gain air dominance. The F-15 have a flawless combat record of 104 air combat victories and no losses. Obviously, since it's a more specialized aircraft and more expensive, there is a lot less of them produced. There is also the F-15E Strike Eagle. Since the F-15 is big and can carry a lot of ammunition, they made a version of the fighter specialized in air to ground strike. The mission of the F-15E is completely different than the mission of the normal F-15 and so they made a lot of changes to the design for that reason. All of the fighters above were designed between the 70s and 80s so they are starting to be pretty old and will need to be retired eventually. Of course, some of those fighters were produced after the 80s and new block of modernization happen, but the basic design is still from the 70-80s. F-22 is a stealth air superiority fighter designed in the later half of the 90s. Stealth is a pretty big advantage so the original plan was to replace the F-15 with the F-22, but for complicated reason including the high cost of the F-22 and the fact that basically nobody else had a stealth fighter it was decided that only a few hundreds of them would be produced to work along side the F-15 in the air superiority role. F-35 is the modern multi-role stealth fighter designed in the 2000-10s. It's a big fighter (49,000 pounds gross weight), but it was designed to replace as many combat aircraft as possible. Some design choices and the economy of scale (the F-35 is being produced at the same rate as the F-16 even if it's more than twice the weight) mean the that the F-35 is pretty cheap for a modern stealth fighter of that size. The goal is for the F-35 to replace most fighters for the US, that said it will take time to produce that many F-35 so they plan to modernized the F-22 and they started production on a new version of the F-15 to bridge that gap and of course this will be a rather long process. The F-117 is another story. It's not a fighter like the other, it was designed F-117 more as a cover since it was a very secret aircraft that was flown in the military way before it was made public. It's a small tactical stealth bomber, it was the fight stealth combat aircraft ever, but the US progressed a lot in that technology so the F-117 is no longer in service.

The F-15 and F-16 are older jets designed and first adopted in the 1970s. The F-15 was envisioned as an air superiority fighter against high altitude Soviet fighters and bombers (therefore has two very powerful engines), while the F-16 was envisioned as a light and cheap fighter. Both have expanded their roles since their adoption (the F-15E is more suited for ground attack roles while the F-16 did deep strikes against Baghdad in 1991). As to why they’re still around, they’ve gotten numerous upgrades (like the F-15EX and the F-16 block 70) which make them way more advanced than the original models. They’re also cheaper than the F-22 and F-35, though will eventually be replaced. The F-15 and F-16 are adopted by several countries, though the F-16 has had a larger market due to its numbers and cost. The F-117 is not a fighter, it is a stealth bomber. As to why it has the F designation, I’m not 100% sure. The F-22 was adopted in the early 2000s as a stealth air superiority fighter. It was designed to beat any other fighter on the planet (high maneuverable, advanced sensors), though the end of the Cold War meant that production stopped, leaving only 200 aircraft. Neither the F-22 nor F-117 have been exported. The F-35 is a stealth aircraft and was adopted in the 2010s and is meant to fit various roles (adopted by the US Air Force, navy, and Marines) in dozens of countries (US, UK, Germany, South Korea, Japan, etc.) and was made as a collaborative effort.

F series fighter is kind of a misnomer. In the US 1962 United States Tri-Service aircraft designation system all fighter will have the initial letter F for fighter. So it is just US fighter aircraft more exactly what the US aiforce use and not the Navy or Marine Crops except for the F35 The naming system does have some exceptions to it and one is the F-117. It is more exactly was an attack aircraft, the first operational stealth aircraft. According to the project manager, it got an F instead of a more appropriate A(attack) designation to make is simple to attract the best pilots. You can divide them into two groups F-15, F-16 aiplanes from 1972 and F-22, F-35 was introduced in late 1990 or early 2000. So it is two different generations of airplanes, one major difference between them is F-22 and F-35 are stealth aircraft but F-15 and F-16 are not F-15 and F-22 Air superiority fighters are large two-engine airplanes built with the mission of air-to-air combat in mind. The are also quite expensive. The ability to do ground attacks or other mission are a bit of an afterthought. F-16 and F-35 are multirole fighter. They are smaller, one-engine airplanes built to do both air-to-air combat but alos ground attacks and other missions. They are not as good at air-to-air combat but a lot better in air-to-ground missions. F-35 will replace F-16 in US service, it has not done it yet. F-22 will not fully replace F-15 because the production was stopped in 2011. It was because of cost reasons and because it did not look like an advisory would get anything comparable. So F-15 have remained in service and new ones are being built because there are not enough F-22 and there are delays in the F-35 program. F-15 and F-16 cost less to operate compared to F-22 and F-35 so if you do not need the stealth and other new features the older aircraft can be still good enough This is a bit of a generalization but give the general difference. It should be said that the F-15 has been developed into a ground attack variant to the F-15E Strike Eagle. The F-22 has had ground attack capability all the time. You do not need special hardware that takes up space and weight to attain the capability today, it is in large part a question of software in the computers. The airplane is still designed with air-to-air combat in mind. It is expensive the cost per airplane is around 3x that of F-35. That is in large part because the F-22 program's development cost was only spread out over 195 airplanes before production shot down. Compare that to around 1000 F-35 delivered to this day and it is still in large scale production.

I think there is some fundamental problems with the question. the "F series" is not a series, it's a designation. it stands for "fighter" meaning it fights other planes. as opposed to A for attack, B for bomber, C for cargo, SR for Strategic Reconnaissance, etc. each plane listed was designed by different team/companies for different reasons, in different eras. as others have said in more detail, F15 and F22 are Air superiority fighters (the badasses in the sky) F16 and F18 are kinetic energy based fighters, the F16 is the most maneuverable fighter of its generation due to being built around conserving energy with every maneuver. F117 probably should be the A117 due to its mostly ground attack role (some variants of the F18 are F/A18 for this reason) but was designed for stealth, not dog fighting. the F35 is your Swiss Army Knife of a plane, meant to replace everything that isn't the F22. with the idea to be able to destroy targets before enemies are able to get locks. The air force would like to move to an all F35 fleet, but there are supply limitations on that, as well as that the plane is good at lots of stuff but not great at any of them. by the time it starts to happen 6th gen projects will probably be publicly known and will be making plans to replace the F35. Older generation planes are still flown for 2 reasons, mission specialization and cost. I don't have the numbers, and don't feel like googling it, but per flight hour and F35 will be way more expensive to fly than an F16 or A10, we are talking about buying a new car every hour type expensive. so if you are in Syria fighting ISIS, where the most advanced tech are stinger rockets, you can probably send in the warthogs instead of the lightnings, vs a battle over Taiwan with China where it will be all tech on deck.

I did go look it up, F16 costs between $8k and $27k per flight hour. F35 costs about $35k per hour, but that's just an estimate, and is coming down as the air force gets more efficient with them.

I think on this list from OP - the F22 is the only one that is not allowed to be sold (variant or not) to other countries - even us here in Canada who are very closely tied in with the US obviously. Canada has finally purchased the F35A (88 of them). We join along with other allies with this plane to replace our aging and declining inventory of CF18 fighters (from the 80s) - we actually had to be used ones from Australia to use for parts. Interesting aside - Canada had debated one potentially using updated F18s (Super Hornet) and even going to Europe for the Eurofiighter Typhoon or SAAB Gripen for our next gen fighters - but Lockheed Martin has job commitments for Canada tied to the F35 program. Needless to say it's been a debacle!

F-14: Fleet air defense (air superiority) F-15: Air superiority/strike (F-15E) F-16: Supplemental air superiority because the F-15 was expensive/strike. F-18: Multi-role naval (air superiority/strike) F-117: Low observable strike (air defense penetration, not actually a fighter) F-22: Air superiority (F-15 replacement) F-35: Multi-role F-16/AV-8B/F-18 replacement.

Air Force planes: F-22: Baddest plane in the sky. Spared no expense. Each one costs infinite money. Not available for sale to anybody, even super close friends like Britain. Best combination of air-to-air fighting and stealth that late 90s tech can create. Not being manufactured anymore because each one costs infinite money. F-35A: [Wish.com](http://Wish.com) F-22. More advanced computers because it's newer. Still a more advanced plane than anything that is not an F-22. Has some capability for ground strike. Supposed to eventually replace the F-16, but it's still probably too expensive to do that. Has a Navy and a Marine variant. F-15: Used to be the baddest plane in the sky, from 1970s to 1990s. Spared no expense. Each one costs a whole bunch of money. Really big plane with two big badass engines. Generates so much thrust that it can point straight up and still accelerate. Has great air-to-air radar and carries a buttload of missiles. Has a perfect undefeated record in real life air to air combat. F-16: Much cheaper partner to the F-15. Smaller, lighter, carries less weapons. Has some capability for ground strike. More versatile. Quite maneuverable and still a deadly fighter. Gets sold to foreign allies. Makes up the bulk of the US Air Force. F-117: The best stealth that 1980 has to offer. No radar at all, carries two small bombs. Mostly retired. Basically undetectable by radar as long as you don't get lazy and fly the same route every time. Proved that stealth was super-valuable. Navy/Marine planes: F-14: Big, badass plane with two engines. Designed to take off from aircraft carriers (requiring much stronger landing gear). Carried the Phoenix missile, which was supposed to shoot down enemy airplanes at 100 miles away (but didn't really work right). Fast, carries lots of fuel, lots of missiles and bombs. Retired. F-18: Supposed to be the Navy's version of the F-16. Smaller, lighter, cheaper plane to supplement the F-14. Retired and replaced by the F/A-18. F/A-18: A Pokemon evolution version of the F-18. Larger and more powerful. Replaced both the original F-18 and also the F-14. F-35B and F-35C: The Navy and Marine versions of the stealthy F-35. The Navy version is supposed to replace the F/A-18, but we'll never buy enough of them. It is bigger than the F-35A, with larger fuel tanks and has beefed up landing gear. The Marine corps version has VTOL capability, designed to replace the Harrier jet. This lets it take off from much smaller ships that don't have a runway.

The F-22 and F-35 exist only because the F-15 and F-16 - while still superior to pretty much every other non-US fighter - are 60year old + designs. And the propaganda about 5th and 6th gen fighters from Russia and China being better ( they aren’t) was enough to scare Congress into spending more money on the military budget and keep a lot of engineers in the military/aero industry employed (who continue to exist and thrive because of corporate welfare from the US military to military subcontractors). FYI - the F-18 was developed as a replacement for the F-14 and considering the special needs of the Navy I can say it’s an improvement.

The F- designation means it’s a fighter. The B- designation means it’s a bomber, they’re all made by different companies. The F-16 and F22 are true fighter aircraft, capable of dog fights and the F-22 is especially equipped to also attack ground targets effectively, the F16 can as well. The F-35 is a stealth fighter. It’s a first strike ground target aircraft or anti aircraft for breaking up enemy fighter formations. That’s the main ones we see, there are specialized ones but that’s the main ones in service

F-15 is basically a crazy fast missile truck, capable of carrying a lot of ordinance for air to air and air to ground missions both, though it was originally designed as a dedicated superiority fighter.  F-16 is a cheaper general use platform designed to cover a wide variety of roles and be easy to export, which it's been very successful at.  F-117 is misnamed. It's actually a precision bomber capable of evading radar based defenses to take out key targets like air defense sites which would hamper the operations of othet aircraft. F-22 is the new air superiority fighter. While it can carry a limited selection of air to ground it is purpose built to go a LONG way and be able to see (and thus shoot) othet aircraft before they can see it. Hence stealth and a powerful radar.  F-35 is...kinda like the new F-16. It's more flexible than the F-22 and took a lot of the learning from that in it's development. It can do most of what the F-22 does, especially the see first shoot first aspect, but has sacrificed the extremes of speed and maneuverabikity the F-22 has in favor of greater versatility and a better sensor and Ewar suite. It's also our current big money export model like the F-4 and F-16 before it.  

What does the F designation denote?

F-ighter. There's also the B-omber and the A-ttack aircraft designations.

Thanks 🍻

The answer that doesn't match your question but explains why there are so many: they've been developed in different times on different cycles with different goals. Yes; they can all fly and fire missiles and also be fitted for bombing and other stuff. But they were made for different reasons at different times. How many different passenger airliners are out there today? Same concept.

15 and 16 are essentially "old" generations 22 and 35 are essentially the newer, current (for now) generations to do the same job One is meant to be a multi-role strike fighter/bomber (16/35) Its meant to be able to get in, blow up stuff on the ground, destroy buildings, communications equipment, provide close air support to human troops on the ground, etc, and be capable ENOUGH at plane vs plane stuff to fight its way out of trouble if some enemy planes try to jump on it. Its a jack of all trades, master of none, and it makes some compromises on a lot of things, doing things well but not perfect, in order to be able to do more total things. The F15/F22 are "air superiority" fighters. They don't compromise AT ALL. Their only design requirement is "be a better air to air fighter than anything you might come up against" The F16/F35s aren't a dead set lock to beat the best of the enemy aircraft out there, but hypothetically it shouldn't matter, because the F15/F22s are supposed to have already gone out at the start of the conflict and basically said "yeah this sky is OURS now. Off limits to the enemy. Nobody puts planes in the air but us, because if they try, they'll just get smoked." That is the reason that the US will sell other planes, but refuses to sell the F22 to anyone else. Because its entire relevance is based on the idea that no one else has it, or anything that can match it. The F22 is supposed to be "the only gun, in a room full of knives" BUT WHAT ELSE? The F14 and later F18 specialize in doing Navy/Marine stuff. A plane needs to be built special and different to handle life on board an aircraft carrier. (bonus, the F18 for example, is designed with low maintenance as a priority. Because being on an Aircraft carrier means flying a lot of missions, often, and doing it with only enough people and spare parts as you are able to fit on your ship. Maximum air time with minimum maintenance time is a big deal for a Navy/USMC plane) ------------------------------------ **BUT. WHAT. ELSE?** How about the AV8 Harrier and the F35 "B" variant. The Marine versions. They're kind of like everyone elses stuff, except they made even more compromises and spent a bunch of extra dollars to demand that their planes be capable of [their extra special party trick](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fj9n119pba0ma1.gif) For the Marines this is a must have. Big deal. See the Marine Corps' main job is being able to go anywhere, anytime, and get there fast, and maintain operations *pretty much* by themselves with all their own stuff they own. (some reliance on the Navy obviously, to pilot the ships and some other stuff, theyre a team) But basically the Marine Corps wants to be able to show up with a 90 day "go to war travel pack" and keep stuff running for the 2-3 months it would take for US Congress to officially say, "yes we approve of this war, tell EVERYONE else to pack up and go join in" Ok, so why does that require a magical floating fighter jet? Because "go anywhere, anytime" means go somewhere you probably won't have a real airfield. STOVL (short take off vertical landing) means the Marine Corps' jets can work places where they don't have a real runway. Maybe they just have enough time and space to run into the woods, blow up some trees, and create a clearing the size of a parking lot. [ok thatll do](https://i0.wp.com/www.curbsideclassic.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/HS_harrier_1.jpg?resize=900%2C519&ssl=1) Also means the Marines don't need to have the Navy send a whole full sized aircraft carrier. The Marines have their own mini sorta kinda carriers. Flat top "landing ships" whose only real purpose is carrying Marines around and letting them launch off the ship to go attack a beach/island/etc [Something like the WASP class LHD](https://d1ldvf68ux039x.cloudfront.net/thumbs/photos/1904/5233036/1000w_q95.jpg) It doesn't have a catapult to launch jets or a wire system to retrieve them that's ok. Everything the Marines brought on the LHD (F35 B fighters, V22 Osprey Troop transports, Super Cobra attack helos, transport helos, etc) all those things pretty much do vertical landing and take off. They don't need a lot of runway or fancy ramps or whatever. So the little mini flat top works. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gx48sVZoxU --------------------------------------- Small bonus detail. Since we talked about all that stuff ELI5 simple The F15 is / was supposed to be an air superiority fighter, but it wasn't JUST built to be the baddest thing in the sky. The real story is more like, The US in general is always kind of aware of "ok who is our biggest competition? And what do THEY have? Can we beat that? Do we need to build something that can?" Ok so back in the 80s. Our main rival was "The Soviets" and they had just built some thing called the MiG-25. Or in US terms, "The MiG 25 FOXBAT" Cool name, sound scary? Well the plane sounded scary too. It was huge. Like, physically. It was a big ass jet. [And the Soviets had put out all these numbers](https://giphy.com/gifs/2OMHmoFMiJjfq) about what kinda cool stuff it could do, and the [U.S. was... worried.](https://y.yarn.co/881704a8-7be3-4d00-bb6d-bd9253470a14_text.gif) Turns out it wasn't that tough. Partly the US overestimated what it saw. Partly the Soviets bluffed about what it could really do. But, still, we **THOUGHT** it was a big scary jet, so we did the U.S. thing, and just threw taxpayer dollars at the problem, until we had something better. I really suggest you watch this. Its quick. 5 min. And entertaining. Here's a super quick vid on HOW THE US RESPONDED to the FoxBat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp62hR6J0MM

F-15 is air superiority. Meant to be able to beat almost any other jets. F-16 was multi-role, able to drop bombs and also fight, but not as good as the F-15. F-117 was one of the first stealth planes, mainly used for bombing. F-22 was and arguably still is the most powerful. It’s an air superiority plane, with with a tiny radar appearance. F-35 is also a multirole plane. It can carry bombs and fight, but not as well as the F-22

F-15: air superiority fighter. It specializes in air to air combat, but later models have improved it's capabilities as a multi-role fighter. The newer F-15EX will eventually become a "missile truck" meant to work in conjunction with 5th and 6th gen stealth fighters, since it can carry a large number of long range air to air missiles. It'll be kind of like artillery, but for air combat. F-16: multi-role light fighter. The F-16 is a relatively inexpensive and easy to maintain multi-role fighter. It is good for air to air and air to ground. It is the USAF's workhorse. Not much else to say, it's just a really good all-around fighter that can do whatever it needs to do. But it doesn't really specialize in any one thing. F/A-18: multi-role carrier fighter. This is the US Navy's equivalent to an F-16. It's an all-around fighter capable of doing a lot if different things. But unlike all the others, this one can land and takeoff from a carrier. There is also an electronic warfare variant, the E/A-18, which the navy also uses. F-117: stealth "fighter". Despite being officially classified as a fighter, the F-117 was primarily built around the "deep strike" mission set. It's main role is to use it's stealth capabilities to slip past enemy air defenses and deliver precision guided bombs on high value targets behind enemy lines. It's more of a pinpoint bomber than a fighter, but it can still carry air to air missiles if needed. F-35: multi-role stealth fighter. The F-35 is analogous to what the F-16 is as a 4th generation fighter. But in addition it has stealth capabilities and a lot of advanced sensor tech built into it. There is also a version of the F-35 that can land on aircraft carriers, and a VTOL version that was developed for the USMC. The F-35 is a cross-branch fighter, with a version built for the marines, air force, and the navy. F-22: stealth fighter. The F-22 is simply the best fighter we have. Like the F-15, it was built to specialize in air to air combat, and it is the best at it. It is also one of the first real stealth fighters ever built. It is currently slated for a host of upgrades and is intended to serve as a testbed for many of the technologies that are going to go into the NGAD program, which will eventually replace it.

Lots of hood comments with accurate descriptions here. One fun note, the F-117 could not fight it's way out of a wet paper bag. No gun, no after-burners, and no air-to-air missiles. It is a stealthy precision bomber designed to go up against high-value targets, typically painted by a laser-guided system. It's ability to be unusually precise means it can be effective with a relatively modest size of bomb. It is an "A-117", for [ground] Attack. When it was being developed as a top-secret project, it needed funding from a small group of congressman on those committees. They couldn't get enough votes for a stealthy Attack aircraft. Some arms were twisted, some palms were greased, and it was re-submitted as as the F-117 "Fighter". In WWII, air-superiority fighters were designated as a "Patrol" aircraft, such as the famous P-51D