Since the 1940s, combat aircraft operated by the armed forces of the United States represented a military capability which no other nation proved capable of matching. The US-made military aircraft are usually the most controversial and most expensive, but also most powerful, most advanced, produced in greatest numbers, and best equipped and armed. Dozens of designs became outright yardsticks against which all other aircraft in the same category, manufactured by other countries and operated by other armed forces, are judged. This book is the first in a series of volumes to cover the history of combat aircraft in the USA from 1945 until 1990: specifically, this Volume 1 is the chronicle of service requirements that led to the development of specific types of fighters, fighter-bombers, and fighter-interceptors in the USA, the political maneuvering in their support or against them, their research and development and operational history in the period 1945-1949. David Baker presents hundreds and thousands of facts in an accessible, easy to follow fashion of a technical directory of the most important types, in a volume that is richly illustrated with authentic photography and exclusive artwork. AUTHOR: David Baker worked with NASA on the Gemini, Apollo and Shuttle programs between 1965 and 1990. He has written more than 100 books on space flight, aviation, and military technology and is the former editor of Jane's Space Directory and Jane's Aircraft Upgrades. In 1986, he was made a member of the International Academy of Astronautics by NASA manned flight boss George Mueller and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a member of the US Air Force Association. He received the 1998 Rolls-Royce Award for Aerospace Journalist of the Year and in 2005 he was a recipient of the Arthur C Clarke Award. In October 2017, he received the American Astronautical Society's Frederick I. Ordway III award "for a sustained excellence in space coverage, through books and articles, as well as engagement in the early US space program". David is currently the editor of Spaceflight, the monthly space news magazine of the British Interplanetary Society, of which he is also a Fellow, a lecturer, and consultant. 60 b/w photos, 30 colour photos, 24 colour profiles, 1 map, 1 diagram,18 tables