Fighter aircraft use "C" (Nieuport 17 C.1). Although the term "fighter" specifies aircraft designed to shoot down other aircraft, such designs are often also useful as multirole fighter-bombers, strike fighters, and sometimes lighter, fighter-sized tactical ground-attack aircraft. This has always been the case, for instance the Sopwith Camel and other "fighting scouts" of World War I performed a great deal of ground-attack work. In World War II, the USAAF and RAF often favored fighters over dedicated light bombers or dive bombers, and types such as the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt and Hawker Hurricane that were no longer competitive as aerial combat fighters were
Thomas-Morse MB-3 Thomas-Morse MB-3 The Thomas-Morse MB-3 was an open-cockpit biplane fighter primarily manufactured by the Boeing Company for the U.S. Army Air Service in 1922. The MB-3A was the mainstay fighter for the Air Service between 1922 and 1925. In March 1918, the United States Army Air Service requested several American aircraft manufacturers to design a new fighter, to be powered by a water-cooled Wright-Hispano H, a license-built Hispano-Suiza 8, to replace the French-built SPAD XIII. The Thomas-Morse Aircraft Corporation of Ithaca, New York proposed the MB-3, designed by its British-born chief designer B. Douglas Thomas, to meet this requirement, with