A thought occurred to me recently which it may be worth picking the forum brains on:

When did the British, or any nation, first use the term "Fighter", in the now-familiar sense relating to aircraft? And when did it become official terminology?

Early British single-seaters were refered to as "Scouts". But ironically, the first British aircraft that I know of to be called a fighter was a two-seater, the Bristol F2A/B, aka "Bristol Fighter" - but was this an official term and was it the first use? From about mid-1914, Vickers types were known as "Fighting Biplanes", as in Vickers FB5 "Gunbus": did the term derive from this?

The Germans seemed to have used the term first, and then changed it. AFAIK, the word Kampf translates as "Fight" or "Struggle". The Fokker E-types were organised into units known as Kampfeinsitzer Kommando - Single-Seat Fighter Unit - KeK. But by autumn 1916, the single-seaters were organised into Jadgstaffel - "Hunting Squadrons". At about the same time they named their Bomber units "Kampfstaffel" or "Kampfgeschwader" - so in fact ever since then, they haved refered to what we call Bombers as Fighters.

The Americans and French continued with the German idea of single-seaters as Hunting units - with Pursuit planes (until after WW2) and Groupes de Chasse - Hunting Groups, to this day - respectively.

Adrian

I've seen a British reference to "fighting scouts" - ie armed ones as early as 1915 - will try and dig out tonight.

My 1916 copy of Royal Flying Corps Technical Notes describes the Vickers FB5 as the 'Vickers Fighter'

From memory the Airco Dh2 was refered to as a fighter whilst the Sopwith Pup was officially a scout. Perhaps the RFC adopted the term earlier than the RNAS

There's a piece about aircraft types in the Flight edition of 15 January 1915 which discusses various aircraft designs. The term 'fighter' is used to describe what is also called the 'aerial destroyer' type of aeroplane.

Gareth

So it seems as though the term "fighter" was coined fairly early on. But the term "Scout" continued in use until well into 1916. Perhaps the eclipse of the "lone wolf" by Formation tactics from late 1916 meant that single-seates were less and less doing duties that could be described as scouting.

The nickname "Bristol Fighter" suggests that the term was becoming well-known by the introduction of the F2A (or was the name coined by the press after the war?). When was Fighter Command so-called - the 1920s I believe?

I think that the designation fighter ('Avions de chasse' en Français) appeared
at the moment when synchronized firing through the propeller was invented

Bruno

'Fighter' sounds like a tabloid word, when did it first appear in the press?

The Bristol is referred to as the Bristol F2a Fighter (or Bristol F2b Fighter) in official documentation

The earliest reference that I could find in a technical type journal is that mentioned in post 5. Tabloid use might be much harder to find.

Gareth

Gareth, you have done better than the Oxford English Dictionary, which located its first reference in 1917.

So it seems that the Vickers FB5 and the Bristol F2a/b were officially refered to as Fighters. Interestingly, given the later use of the term to describe a small nimble aircraft, these two types were large, two-seat aircraft - the aerial destroyer concept as in the Flight article that Gareth found. The small single-seaters were still called scouts.

Am I right in thinking that the FE in FE2b stood for Fighting Experimental (I know that it originally stood for Farman Experimental) and the SE in SE5 stood for Scouting Experimental (I know it originally stood for Santos Experimental). If so, the Royal Aircraft Factory were following the system above.

So Rob and Gareth have found out the first types known as Fighters. When did the entire class become known as Fighters, offically?

To me it makes absolute sense (once our generational preconceived notion that a fighter has to be fast and have a single seat - eg Spitfire, Hurricane et al) that in the Great War, the two-seater 'gun platform' aircraft such as the FB5 Gunbus, FE2 Fee and F2b Biff/Brisfit should be coined as fighters, whereas the fast and manoeuvrable single seat attack aircraft (DH2, FE8, Sopwith Pup etc) be referred to as scouts.

I suppose the "Fighters" of WW1 such as the FE2b/d and F2a/b were more equivalent to the "Heavy Fighters" or "Bomber Destroyers" of WW2, such as the Beaufighter, Mosquito and Bf110. But where that analogy would not quite fit is that I suspect the the FE2b was never intended to perform a different role from the DH2, but it was the Royal Aircraft Factory's idea of what a machine intended for combat with other aircraft should be. It was only successful in taking on the Fokkers when used in Flight strength in a defensive circle: on its own it was absolutely hopeless (see the victory lists of any the top German aces of 1916). Whereas the F2b "Bristol Fighter" was successful because it was as fast as a single-seater and only slightly less manoeverable - more like the Mosquito Fighter or the Lockheed P38.