Interceptor aircraft
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An interceptor aircraft, or simply interceptor, is a type of
For daytime operations, conventional light fighters have normally filled the interceptor role. Day interceptors have been used in a defensive role since World War I, and are perhaps best known from major actions like the Battle of Britain, when the Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane were part of a successful defensive strategy. However, dramatic improvements in both ground-based and airborne radar gave greater flexibility to existing fighters and few later designs were conceived as dedicated day interceptors. Exceptions include the Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet, which was the only rocket-powered, manned military aircraft to see combat. To a lesser degree, the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15, which had heavy armament specifically intended for anti-bomber missions, was also a specialised day interceptor.
Through the 1960s and 1970s, the rapid improvements in
History
The first interceptor squadrons were formed during
The term "interceptor" was in use by 1929.[1] Through the 1930s, bomber aircraft speeds increased so much that conventional interceptor tactics appeared impossible. Visual and acoustic detection from the ground had a range of only a few miles, which meant that an interceptor would have insufficient time to climb to altitude before the bombers reached their targets. Standing combat air patrols were possible but only at great cost. The conclusion at the time was that "the bomber will always get through".
The invention of
The introduction of jet power increased flight speeds from around 300 miles per hour (500 km/h) to around 600 miles per hour (1,000 km/h) in a step and roughly doubled operational altitudes. Although radars also improved in performance, the gap between offense and defense was dramatically reduced. Large attacks could so confuse the defense's ability to communicate with pilots that the classic method of manual ground controlled interception was increasingly seen as inadequate. In the United States, this led to the introduction of the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment to computerize this task, while in the UK it led to enormously powerful radars to improve detection time.
The introduction of the first useful
In the 1950s and 1960’s during the
The interceptor mission is, by its nature, a difficult one. Consider the desire to protect a single target from attack by long-range bombers. The bombers have the advantage of being able to select the parameters of the mission – attack vector, speed and altitude. This results in an enormous area from which the attack can originate. In the time it takes for the bombers to cross the distance from first detection to being on their targets, the interceptor must be able to start, take off, climb to altitude, maneuver for attack and then attack the bomber.
A dedicated interceptor aircraft sacrifices the capabilities of the
Point-defense interceptors
In the spectrum of various interceptors, one design approach especially shows sacrifices necessary to achieve decisive benefit in a chosen aspect of performance. A "point defense interceptor" is[3] of a lightweight design, intended to spend most of its time on the ground located at the defended target, and able to launch on demand, climb to altitude, manoeuvre and then attack the bomber in a very short time, before the bomber can deploy its weapons.
At the end of Second World War, the
In the initial stage of
The role of manned point defense designs was reassigned to unmanned interceptors—
Area defense
As capabilities continued to improve – especially through the widespread introduction of the jet engine and the adoption of high speed, low level flight profiles, the time available between detection and interception dropped. Most advanced point defence interceptors combined with long-range radars were struggling to keep the reaction time down enough to be effective. Fixed times, like the time needed for the pilot to climb into the cockpit, became an increasing portion of the overall mission time, there were few ways to reduce this. During the Cold War in times of heightened tensions, quick reaction alert (QRA) aircraft were kept piloted, fully fuelled and armed, with the engines running at idle on the runway ready to take off. The aircraft being kept topped up with fuel via hoses from underground fuel tanks. If a possible intruder was identified, the aircraft would be ready to take off as soon as the external fuel lines were detached. However, keeping QRA aircraft at this state of readiness was physically and mentally draining to the pilots and was expensive in terms of fuel.
As an alternative, longer-range designs with extended loiter times were considered. These area defense interceptors or area defense fighters were in general larger designs intended to stay on lengthy patrol and protect a much larger area from attack, depending on greater detection capabilities, both in the aircraft themselves and operating with AWACS, rather than high speed to reach targets. The exemplar of this concept was the
Countries that were strategically dependent on surface fleet, most notably US and UK, maintained also fleet defense fighters, such as the
Development
Soviet Union and Russia
During the Cold War, an entire military service, not just an arm of the pre-existing air force, was designated for deployment of interceptors. The aircraft of the Soviet Air Defence Forces (PVO-S) differed from those of the Soviet Air Forces (VVS) in that they were by no means small or crudely simple, but huge and refined with large, sophisticated radars; they could not take off from grass, only concrete runways; they could not be disassembled and shipped back to a maintenance center in a boxcar. Similarly, their pilots were given less training in combat maneuvers, and more in radio-directed pursuit.
The Soviets' main interceptor was initially the
Russia, despite merging the PVO into the VVS, continues to maintain its dedicated MiG-31 interceptor fleet.
United States
In 1937, USAAC lieutenants Gordon P. Saville and Benjamin S. Kelsey devised a pair of proposals for interceptor aircraft, the first such designation in the US. One proposal was for a single-engined fighter, the other for a twin-engine. Both were required to reach an altitude of 20,000 feet (6,100 m) in six minutes as a defense against bomber attack. Kelsey said later that he used the interceptor designation to sidestep a hard USAAC policy restricting fighters to 500 pounds (230 kg) of armament. He wished for at least 1,000 pounds (450 kg) of armament so that American fighters could dominate their battles against all opponents, fighters included. The two aircraft resulting from these proposals were the single-engine Bell P-39 Airacobra and the twin-engine Lockheed P-38 Lightning. Both aircraft were successful during World War II in standard fighter roles, not specifically assigned to point defense against bombers.[6]
From 1946 to 1980 the United States maintained a dedicated
As the F-106 was retired, intercept missions were assigned to the contemporary
In the 1950s, the
United Kingdom
The British
China
The
Other countries
Several other countries also introduced interceptor designs, although in the 1950s–1960s several planned interceptors never came to fruition, with the expectation that missiles would replace bombers.
The Argentine FMA I.Ae. 37 was a prototype jet fighter developed during the 1950s. It never flew and was cancelled in 1960.
The Canadian subsonic Avro Canada CF-100 Canuck served in numbers through 1950s. Its supersonic replacement, the CF-105 Arrow ("Avro Arrow"), was controversially cancelled in 1959.
The Swedish Saab 35 Draken was specifically designed for intercepting aircraft passing Swedish airspace at high altitudes in the event of a war between the Soviet Union and NATO. With the advent of low flying cruise-missiles and high-altitude AA-missiles the flight profile was changed, but regained the interceptor profile with the final version J 35J.
See also
References
- ^ The Gloster S.S.8, Flight, 6 December 1929, Page 1273: "the type of single-seater fighter known as an "Interceptor" is a class of aircraft designed, as the title suggests, for intercepting hostile aircraft."
- ISBN 0-87021-059-9.
- ISBN 978-1782003748.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-306-81689-5.
- Nike Ajax or S-25 Berkut. The year 1957 marked the deployment of SA-75 Dvina.
- ISBN 978-0-9629359-5-4.