fighter pilot

American  

[fahy-ter pahy-luht] / ˈfaɪ tər ˌpaɪ lət /

noun

Military.

1. a pilot trained to fly aircraft classified as fighters and to engage in aerial combat.

   The last surviving member of this celebrated squadron of fighter pilots has died, at age 92.

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Etymology

Origin of fighter pilot

First recorded in 1935–40

Example Sentences

Pahlavi was 18 years old and in the U.S. training to be a jet fighter pilot when the revolution that ousted his father unfolded.

From The Wall Street Journal

Groomed from birth to inherit Iran's Peacock Throne, Reza Pahlavi was undergoing fighter pilot training in the United States when the 1979 revolution swept away his father's monarchy.

From BBC

By shooting down four MiG-15s in a single fight, “Royce Williams had accomplished what no other American fighter pilot would ever accomplish,” Thomas McKelvey Cleaver wrote in a history of the Korean naval air campaign.”

From The Wall Street Journal

"I'm concerned that if there were, in fact, as reported, survivors clinging to a damaged vessel, that that could be over a line," the former fighter pilot and astronaut told a news conference.

From Barron's

“Denny devised a miniature radio plane, remote-controlled, which became the basis for drones in World War II,” and was used to train fighter pilots, Wanamaker says.

From Los Angeles Times