Beginning in the 1940s, the term "strike fighter" was occasionally used in navies to refer to
fighter aircraft capable of performing
air-to-surface strikes, such as the
Westland Wyvern,
Blackburn Firebrand and
Blackburn Firecrest. The term "light weight tactical strike fighter (LWTSF)" was used to describe the aircraft to meet the December 1953 NATO specification
NBMR-1. Amongst the designs submitted to the competition were the
Aerfer Sagittario 2,
Breguet Br.1001 Taon,
Dassault Étendard VI,
Fiat G.91 and
Sud-Est Baroudeur. The term entered normal use in the
United States Navy by the end of the 1970s, becoming the official description of the new
McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet. In 1983, the U.S. Navy even renamed each existing Fighter Attack Squadron to Strike Fighter Squadron to emphasize the air-to-surface mission (as the "Fighter Attack" designation was confused with the "Fighter" designation, which flew pure air-to-air missions). This name quickly spread to non-maritime use. When the F-15E Strike Eagle came into service, it was originally called a "dual role fighter", but it instead quickly became known as a "strike fighter".
Joint Strike Fighter In 1995, the U.S. military's Joint Advanced Strike Technology program changed its name to the
Joint Strike Fighter program. The project consequently resulted in the development of the
F-35 Lightning II family of
fifth generation multirole fighters to perform
ground attack,
reconnaissance, and
air defense missions with
stealth capability. == Modern strike fighters ==