Everything about Night Fighters totally explained
A
night fighter (also
all-weather fighter) is a
fighter aircraft adapted for use at night or in other times of bad visibility.
Night fighters came into their own during
World War II, made possible with the advent of airborne
radar. Prior to that, the main components of air defence at night were
searchlights and
anti-aircraft artillery, along with
blackout precautions. After the War night fighters have declined in importance as a separate class due to a general increase in night-fighting capability amongst all fighters.
This role typically required the use of
radar,
aerodrome beacons as well as
direction finders to find the
airbase at night and various
communications equipment and lighting inside the
cockpit. This much gear normally required a twin-engine aircraft to lift it, notably because this left the nose area of the aircraft clear for the radar installation, where the engine would be in a single-engine design. Many night fighters were converted from earlier
heavy fighter designs and some from
bombers; examples include the
Bristol Beaufighter and the
de Havilland Mosquito. Some are designed specifically as a nightfighter, as in the
P-61 Black Widow.
During
World War II the
Luftwaffe also experimented with single-engine aircraft in this role which they referred to as
Wilde Sau (
wild boar). In this case the fighters, typically
Focke-Wulf Fw 190s, were equipped only with a direction finder and landing lights. In order to find their targets other aircraft, guides from the ground would drop strings of
flares in front of the bombers or simply wait for them to fly over burning cities. The
U.S. Navy fitted radar sets to the wings of its single-engined
F6F Hellcat fighters by the close of the war, operating them successfully in the
Pacific.
Night fighters existed as a separate class into the 1960s. As aircraft grew in capability, radar-equipped
interceptors could take on the role of night fighters and the class went into decline. Examples of these latter-day interceptor/night-fighters include the
Avro Arrow,
Convair F-106 Delta Dart and the
English Electric Lightning. Aircraft development has blurred this line further, to a point where interceptors have been supplanted by conventional designs. The only design remaining in service within this niche is the
Russian
MiG-31. Until its retirement the
US Navy's
F-14 Tomcat filled a similar role. In both cases they need to support operations at very long ranges – out of
missile range for the Americans and across
Siberia for the Russians – which can't be filled by smaller aircraft.
World War I
World War II
Germany
Dornier Do 217J, 217N
Focke-Wulf Ta 154
Heinkel He 219
Junkers Ju 88C, Ju 88G
Messerschmitt Bf 110F-4, 110G-4
Messerschmitt Me 262
Imperial Japan
Nakajima J1N Gekko (月光)
Soviet Union
Yakovlev Yak-9M PVO
United Kingdom
Pre-radar:
Boulton Paul Defiant
AI radar:
Bristol Blenheim
Bristol Beaufighter (1940)
de Havilland Mosquito (1942)
Gloster Meteor (1944)
United States
F6F-5N Hellcat
Grumman F7F-2N, F7F-3N
P-38M "Night Lightning"
P-61 Black Widow
Korean War
United States
F3D SkyknightFurther Information
Get more info on 'Night Fighters'.
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