Aviation
The Thunderbolt Mk.1 was the first variant of the P‑47D supplied to the Royal Air Force under Lend‑Lease. As one of the heaviest single‑engine fighters of the war, it introduced RAF pilots to an American design philosophy built around structural strength, high‑altitude performance, and exceptional dive capability. Its large radial engine, robust airframe, and eight .50‑calibre Browning machine guns made it a formidable fighter‑bomber capable of absorbing significant damage while delivering powerful strikes against both air and ground targets.
The French F4U-7 is hardly a new arrival, but it still deserves some attention. Its suspended armament was recently expanded, and this veteran piston fighter can now make a serious claim to being the most versatile Corsair in the game. Why this one in particular? Let’s compare.
The Yak-130 is a modern two seat Russian trainer with powerful engines and an ordnance loadout that packs a punch. Made to prepare future pilots for the complexity and maneuverability of 4th, and even 5th generation fighters, it is a real force to be reckoned with due to its high tech and supermaneuverable nature. Not only is the Yak-130 a menace in War Thunder, but this powerful trainer also has a unique history full of complications and many interesting partnerships.
The end of the Second World War gave the United States military only a brief respite. The Cold War that followed demanded no less effort, along with an enormous amount of work from engineers and military theorists. During the struggle against the Axis powers, the U.S. Air Force had refined several existing concepts and developed new ones. One of them was the penetration fighter: a fast, long-range aircraft capable of escorting strategic bombers deep into enemy territory and breaking through hostile air defenses. In essence, it was an evolution of the traditional escort-fighter concept.
The Supermarine Attacker was a fighter that emerged in the 1940s with the aim of replacing the legendary Gloster Meteor, the UK’s first jet fighter, which had already made aviation history, and simultaneously becoming the Royal Navy’s first frontline jet fighter. The Attacker failed to achieve its primary objective: the introduction of a modern, efficient single-engine jet aircraft for the Royal Air Force, and its service life was short due to poor overall performance and maintenance issues. Its history and service, spanning from 1950 to 1964, reflects the challenges of the transition to the jet age in the United Kingdom and the introduction of the first jet aircraft of the Royal Pakistan Air Force (RPAF). Throughout its 14 years of service, the aircraft never took part in any conflict or combat.
We often talk about versatile aircraft that feel equally capable in almost any situation. But War Thunder also has highly specialized machines built for one very specific job. Today’s aircraft is exactly that. The British Welkin F.Mk.I is neither a multirole fighter nor a master of close-range dogfights
In 1944, the Sukhoi Design Bureau started working on a new twin-engine fighter. The design process was slow, but the bureau soon acquired a captured German Me 262 Schwalbe ("Swallow"), which profoundly influenced the project's subsequent development. This culminated in the Su-9 in 1947, which retained the Me 262’s layout but had a different fuselage and wing design. Soon after, the Su-11 was created based on the Su-9, featuring more powerful TR-1 engines. However, in the game, the Su-11’s performance is much superior than that of the Su-9 or the Me 262. It stands out for its excellent acceleration and incredible energy conservation. Is it really that good?
In the first years after World War II, Soviet aviation found itself in a pretty weird situation. Industry had ramped up production of thousands of modern piston-engine fighters, and the ranks were filled with hundreds of pilots hardened in combat against the Luftwaffe. But at the same time, jets — the German Schwalbes and the British Meteors — were already flying over Europe, while the Soviet Union still had no working jet engine of its own. A promising project by engineer Arkhip Lyulka was scrapped after the German invasion because the engineer had to be evacuated to the Ural mountains. And although Soviet design bureaus conducted experiments with jet and rocket engines from 1942 through 1945, none ever reached serial production.
Almost everyone with even a passing interest in jet aviation has heard of the MiG-21. It’s one of the most mass-produced and recognizable fighters in history. The MiG 21 2000, however, is far less widely known. And that’s no surprise: it was a fairly rare Israeli deep modernization program, created for countries that wanted to keep a time-tested aircraft in service while bringing its capabilities closer to modern standards. In War Thunder, we can finally see how well that idea worked.