Strike fighter

In current military parlance, a strike fighter is a multirole combat aircraft designed to operate primarily in the air-to-surface attack role while also incorporating certain performance characteristics of a fighter aircraft. As a category, it is distinct from fighter-bombers. It is a closely related concept to interdictor aircraft, but it puts more emphasis on air-to-air combat capabilities as a multirole combat aircraft. Examples of contemporary American strike fighters are the McDonnell Douglas F-15E Strike Eagle, Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, and Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II.

History

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 and Blackburn Firebrand. It 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).

After Burner III

After Burner III is a video game released for the FM-Towns home computer in Japan and later ported to the Sega CD in Japan, Europe and North America. It is the third game in the After Burner series, and a port of Strike Fighter, a game released for Japanese arcades, itself a sequel to G-LOC: Air Battle.

The game again has the player flying the F-14 Tomcat, with the same weapons as before. Headquarters has informed the player character that "the enemy" (which the game's introduction does not identify) is reported to be building airfields and bases throughout the desert. His mission is to take out those bases.

After Burner III differs from After Burner II significantly. Several cinematic sequences are featured in the game. The "rolling mode" in the game is now optional. Also, two selectable in-game views are available from the main menu. The default view is the "cockpit", a flight simulator-styled view. The second type of view is "back", which is similar to the After Burner II arcade game.