The tri-national Tornado was a collaboration between Britain, Germany, and Italy, and its successor, the Eurofighter 2000, previously known as the European Fighter Aircraft, also includes Spain. The Eurofighter 2000 is a single-seat fighter equipped with fly-by-wire electronics, including a voice-controlled computer system, and the airframe makes extensive use of advanced carbon-fibre composite materials. The Future European Fighter Aircraft project was originally begun by British Aerospace in the early 1980s, with production aircraft scheduled to enter service in the mid-1990s. However, delays and conflicts over design and scheduling ensued, and following France's departure from the programme in 1985, the project was re-named Eurofighter 2000 by the remaining participating nations. The first of seven Eurofighter prototypes made its first flight in March 1994; aircraft are scheduled to enter service in 2001.

Dassault, builders of the Mirage, created the Rafale, an equally advanced aircraft. The Rafale will, at great expense, serve with the French Air Force and aboard the carriers of the French Navy. Sweden's SAAB, builders of such distinctive aircraft as the 1950s-vintage crank-winged Draken, and 1970s Viggen, a heavyweight fighter-bomber with large foreplanes mounted ahead of the delta wing, is building a lightweight fighter called the JAS-39 Gripen, which should cost about half the price of a Eurofighter or Rafale.

The lessons of Vietnam resulted in two new aircraft for the USAF: the General Dynamics F-16 and the McDonnell-Douglas F-15. The F-16 was originally an experimental lightweight fighter prototype, which was so successful that the USAF and other air forces bought it in large numbers. Single-engined, the F-16 was built for manoeuvrability. The F-15 Eagle is a much larger twin-engined fighter, originally designed in a single-seat version to combat the Soviet MiG-25 Foxbat. However, the latest model, the F-15E, is an advanced ground-attack aircraft for a two-man crew. Once again, cost encourages plane-makers to get the most out of a tried and tested airframe rather than design anew.

Aircraft such as Russia's MiG-29 and Sukhoi Su-27, Eurofighters, and F-16s were designed not just for the superpower air forces which were their first customers, but for the air forces of developing nations. The race for new technology at any cost, which drove military aircraft development from World War I to the 1980s, has now been moderated by a new awareness of the economics of air fleets.