P-38 Lightning and Mitsubishi Zero (World Fighter Aircraft Collection)

The Chino-based P-38 Lightning "23 Skidoo" chases the Commemorative Air Force's Mitsubishi Zero during the 2006 Arizona Skyfest held near the town of Prescott.

The Zero was Japan's main fighter throughout World War Two, and American forces made extensive use of the Lightning during thePacific War because of its long range, especially when using drop tanks like the ones visible in this photograph underneath "23 Skidoo".   An aircraft with two engines also has considerable advantages when flying over vast stretches of ocean, though flying a P-38 on only one engine is no easy matter.

Ultimately the Lightning shot down more Japanese aircraft than any other USAAF fighter, though navy and Marine Corps F6F Hellcatsdid shoot down more.

P-47 Thunderbolt (World Fighter Aircraft Collection)

The P-47 Thunderbolt was the largest and heaviest single-engined fighter of World War Two, and one of only two American fighters to use a turbo super-charger, the other being the twin-engined P-38 Lightning.

In spite of its size and weight, the Thunderbolt was a very effective fighter, able to tackle even the best German fighters of the time, like the Focke-Wulf FW 190.   Unusually for American land-based fighters of the time, the P-47 wasn't powered by an inline piston engine like the Spitfire, P-40 Warhawk or P-51 Mustang, but a radial piston engine just like the FW 190, a power source also favored by American naval fighters.   Indeed the Thunderbolt used the same R-2800 Double Wasp engine as the F6F Hellcat and F4U Corsair, though it managed to fly slightly faster than the F4U.

Red Bull Bo-105 Helicopter (Unusual Aircraft Collection)

As anyone who has seen the movie Blue Thunder can tell you, helicopters just aren't supposed to do loops!   This German-designed Bo-105 not only breaks that rule, it does all sorts of other aerobatic feats too, especially when flown on the airshow circuit as part of the Red Bull display team.

Although it's not a well-known helicopter in America, the Bo-105 has been very successful since it was certified in 1970.   Since then it has been exported to 20 different countries, where it's used for many civilian purposes as well as police and military operations.

P-51, F-16, F-15 and F-22 (World Fighter Aircraft Collection)

Three generations of American fighter aircraft in formation at the 2006 "Aviation Nation" airshow at Nellis AFB near Las Vegas.

The F-16 Fighting Falcon and F-15 Eagle in the photo are usually classified as "fourth generation" fighters, while the F-22 Raptor is the only operational "fifth generation" fighter.   However the boundary lines between generations is very imprecise, and some aircraft like the Gripen, MiG-35, Sukhoi Su-30 and F-18 Super Hornet are even said rather ungrammatically to be "fourth and a half generation aircraft", sometimes abbreviated to 4.5th generation.

The reality is that almost for a century fighter aircraft technology has advanced faster than almost any other branch of technology, and has incorporated other new technologies as soon as they became practical, including radio, radar, rocket power, cathode ray tubes, transistors, micro-electronics, lasers and GPS, to name just a few.   Indeed if you say that the first world war one fighters were "generation one", then already by the end of that war several generations of fighters had come and gone, because aircraft in service at the start of the war were completely out-classed by the aircraft in use at the end.   Development slowed between the two world wars, but in the lead-up to the second world war biplane fighters became obsolete as faster monoplane designs came into service.   The war saw the development of the first jet fighters, and though the very first, the Me262 Schwalbe, had swept wings, the early British and American jets like the Meteor, Vampire, Venom and Shooting Star all had straight wings and could therefore be considered "first generation" jet fighters.  Technology advanced during the Korean war with next generation swept-wing fighters like the MiG-15 "Fagot" and F-86 Sabre, then settled into a steady pattern of progress as the cold war developed, with supersonic fighters like the MiG-21 "Fishbed" and F-104 Starfighter.   The Vietnam era saw the development and introduction of aircraft like the F-4 Phantom II and the F-14 Tomcat, and then aircraft like the MiG-29 "Fulcrum", Su-27 "Flanker", F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon, which defined the final part of the cold war.

Although a new generation of fighters is coming into service now, aircraft like the Eurofighter Typhoon, Dassault Rafale, Gripen, F-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning II, the future has never looked less interesting for fighter aircraft enthusiasts, with aircraft development taking longer and longer, military budgets getting smaller and the possibility of unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs) taking pilots out of the picture entirely.

Fouga Magister (Unusual Aircraft Collection)

The Fouga Magister was the world's first successful jet trainer, first flying in 1952.   A French design, it was also sold to many other countries, including Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Finland, Cambodia, El Salvador, Brazil and Israel.   One of these Israeli Magisters has a role in the movie Jesus Christ Superstar, chasing Judas across the desert!

The Magister ("school house") has an unusual v-shaped tail which came from a glider which Fouga was using as a jet-engine test aircraft.   The tail didn't quite do the job, so they had to put a stabilizing fin underneath, with a small wheel to prevent it from scraping along the runway when the plane takes off.   The instructor sat in the back cockpit, but the view from there is very bad, so a periscope is fitted to improve forward vision.

This Magister looks like it's on fire, but this is just a smoke system to make its display at the 2002 Royal International Air Tattoo look better.