Return of the Lightweight Fighter

Early in World War II, the Mitsubishi Zero shows the viability of lightweight fighters; heavier and more expensive aircraft, like the Grumman Hellcat, topple the Zero and diminish the stature of lightweight fighters in the eyes of military planners.

By the 1960s, big, heavy fighters with radar guided air-to-air missiles replace outmoded dogfighters; faced with the MiG 21 in Vietnam, the U.S. Air Force gives lightweight fighters a second look.