You’ve seen my post about modern U.S. fighter jets. Now you can get the scoop on other friendly fighters. First, the stats:

The details

F-4 Phantom

One of two U.S. built jets on the list, the F-4 Phantom is old. The Phantom made its name in Vietnam, and the U.S. retired their last one in 1996, but it lumbers on with the Turkish Air Force today.

The Phantom started without a cannon; defense planners thought that supersonic speed and guided missiles would eliminate any classic dogfights and negate the need for a gun. A lot of pilots hated this, with some believing that they missed out on kills. This eventually got the Air Force to add a cannon.

McDonnel Douglas designed the Phantom to intercept soviet bombers. This requires flying fast and high. NASA ended up taking advantage of this by using the Phantom to chase its rockets for filming tests.

You can usually identify an F-4 in media by its iconic camouflage paint job (though the Turkish military seems to use a regular grey these days). It also has half-circle intakes on its sides, a flatish vertical stabilizer, and a bit of a sloped tail contributing to its “hunched” look.

F-5 Tiger II

If you want a fighter jet that really looks the part, go with the F-5. With its pencil-thin looking body, sharp nose, and generally tight attributes, it looks the most similar to how the average kid would draw a fighter plane.

Northrop designed the Tiger II as a cheap, highly exportable plane. Several U.S. officials liked the plane because it could offer a country the ability to effectively defend itself, but not so much capability that it could become an aggressor. For statesmen seeking regional stability, the F-5 had strong appeal.

The F-5 performs similarly to a MiG-21, a very common Russian built fighter. This has allowed U.S. services to frequently use the F-5 to simulate enemy or “red team” forces.

Iran also has a bunch of F-5’s in its Air Force. Over the last several years, they’ve unveiled a few aircraft advertised as home-built fighters, but most of these appear to be F-5 knock-offs.

Tornado

The Panavia Tornado is the first on the list that starts to get a little “modern” in that it was introduced in the same era as F-14s, F-15s, F-16s, and F/A-18s.

Just like the F-14, it has variable swept wings, which means you can often identify it by looking for the “hinge” on its shoulder where you can see space for the wings to move forward and back.

Also like the F-14, it’s tough to maintain. Germany recently made headlines (in the defense world) for its struggles to keep Tornado’s combat ready. The U.S. Navy’s solution to ongoing maintenance issues was to retire the F-14, but Germany is trying to keep its Tornado’s going.

In addition to looking for the swept wing, you can tell a Tornado by its fairly large vertical stabilizer, and boxy air intakes. The whole aircraft just has a “square-ish” look to it.

Panavia ended up developing 3 fairly different variations. They built an interdictor/strike version first, which Germany still uses. Just like the F/A-18, the Tornado also has a variant focused on Electronic combat and Reconnaissance.

However, the Tornado ADV (Air Defense Variant) has the most unique features. Its almost 7 feet longer than the original, and designed to hunt down cold war bombers. The U.K. still has a significant amount of ADV’s.

So – why does the Tornado have variable swept wings? Engineers wanted a way of getting the high speed and efficient cruise abilities of a swept wing fighter with the maneuverability of a straight wing aircraft. By making the wings variable in flight (where the missiles attached also rotate to stay pointing forward), a pilot can get the best performance of either world.

Mirage 2000

From here on out, the aircraft can become a bit tougher to quickly distinguish since they will all have the shape of a tailless delta wing. A delta wing refers to the large triangle shape of the wing that goes nearly to the back of the aircraft. Where most of our planes have had another set of small horizontal wings at the back for the “tail,” these aircraft do not.

You can distinguish the Mirage 2000 from the others by looking for its single engine, lack of canards (little wings in the front), and the little spike sticking out of the air intakes.

The Mirage has had variants and aircraft with similar names before the “2000” version, but the Mirage 2000 is just about the last version in service. It started as an interceptor that had ground strike capabilities, but after delays in the Rafale program the Mirage 2000 got a Nuclear-capable variant.

Gripen

Saab builds the Gripen, and operates out of Sweden. Sweden has not joined NATO, but a few of the smaller NATO countries fly Gripens so it counts. 

Just like the Mirage 2000, the Saab JAS 39 Gripen (or “Griffin” in English) has a delta wing. Unlike the Mirage, the Gripen (and all of the jets from now on) has canards. So how can you tell a Gripen from a Rafale or Typhoon? The Gripen has one engine. If you’re looking from the front and can’t see an engine, look for air intakes on the sides rather than below the fuselage.

Saab designed the Gripen as a multi-role fighter, and they put it right in the name. the “J” in JAS stands for “jakt” (Air-to-Air), the “A” for “Attack” (Air-to-surface), and the “S” for “Spanning” Reconnaissance.

The “Gripen” (Griffin) part of the name came from a public competition. I have to believe that the judges felt some influence coming from the Griffin on the logo for the Saab brand.

From what I’ve seen, the Gripen has a pretty strong fan-base among aviation enthusiasts. Unfortunately, the Rafale and especially the Eurofighter tend to outcompete it in export bids. The Gripen’s case wasn’t helped when it entered in an export partnership with BAE Systems, who got caught engaging in bribery with South Africa shortly into the relationship.

The Gripen can field an extremely wide range of weapons. Part of the driver for this comes from Saab’s willingness to share the source code and full technical documentation with operators. This lets countries operating the Gripen to make their own modifications and upgrades.

Gripen decided to allow for this relatively open architecture as a way to stretch the plane’s lifespan. Open architecture means that it will have an easier time accepting upgrades and adjustments to keep it relevant.

Rafale

The Dassault Rafale is tough to separate from the Eurofighter Typhoon (we’ll get to why in a minute). You can separate it from the Mirage and Gripen by looking for its two engines instead of one. You can separate it from a Typhoon by looking for its relatively horizontal canards, and its rounded air intakes that creep up a bit onto the side.

The horizontal (as opposed to slanted) canards do more to strengthen and stabilize the aircraft, making it a bit better than the typhoon as a strike aircraft. Its often referred to as a “close coupled” canard. This will contrast with the slanted canards of the Typhoon that enhance maneuverability.

The Rafale shares so much with the Typhoon because it started off as the same plane. Dassault (based in France) originally joined the partnership for the Eurofighter Typhoon project, but had a falling out with other stakeholders. Dassault ended up leaving the partnership and developing the Rafale on its own.

Part of the fallout came from France’s differing requirements. France was using the program to try to consolidate its fleet and simplify its maintenance needs. This put France in a position of having significantly different requirements for the fighter than the other countries.

Since many of France’s requirements butted against the other players, France struck-out alone. This makes the Rafale a touch unique in its era by being developed completely by one country. Most fighters of its time involved multi-country partnerships.

The Rafale has a few variants with little difference in appearance. However, it does have on variant – the “M” variant – that is cleared to land on U.S. carriers. It is the only foreign fighter with that clearance.

Typhoon

The Eurofighter Typhoon is widely considered the premier European fighter jet. It was developed by a consortium between Airbus (the French company that makes a large portion of commercial jets you fly on, just like Boeing), BAE Systems (in the U.K.), and Leonardo (in Italy).

To distinguish the Typhoon from the Rafale, look for either square intakes on the bottom, or for the slanted canards. You can also look for the canards placed further forward on the jet than on the Rafale, but that can be tough without looking at them side-by-side.

The Eurofighter has had more success as an export than the Rafale. With over 600 aircraft built compared to Rafale’s ~150, the international origins of the Typhoon helped boost it to the world stage. 

The Eurofighter markets itself well as being one of (or the) most advanced fighter in the world. I don’t think it stands up to the F-22, it may struggle with the F-35, and some even credit the Rafale as being more than capable of going toe-to-toe, but the Typhoon is still quite advanced.

Keep seeking truth.

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