Jet Aircraft Travelling At Transonic Speed

The first operational jet fighter was the Messerschmitt Me 262., made by Germany during late World War II. It was the fastest conventional aircraft of World War II – although the rocket-powered Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet was faster. It had first flown in 1941 but mass production started in 1944 with the first squadrons operational that year, too late for a decisive effect on the outcome of the war. About the same time, mid 1944, the United Kingdom's Gloster Meteor was being committed to defence of the UK against the V1 flying bomb – itself a jet powered aircraft – and then ground-attack operations over Europe in the last months of the war. In 1944 Germany introduced into service the Arado Ar 234 jet reconnaisance and bomber, though chiefly used in the former role. USSR tested its own Bereznyak-Isayev BI-1 in 1942, but the project was scrapped by Joseph Stalin in 1945. The Imperial Japanese Navy also developed jet aircraft in 1945, including the Nakajima J9Y Kikka, a crude copy of the Me 262. By the end of 1945, the US had introduced their next jet fighter, the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star into service and the UK its second fighter design, the de Havilland Vampire
The US introduced the North American B-45 Tornado, their first jet bomber, into service in 1948. Although capable of carrying nuclear weapons it was used for reconnaissance over Korea.
On November 8, 1950, during the Korean War, United States Air Force Lt. Russell J. Brown, flying in an F-80, intercepted two North Korean MiG-15s near the Yalu River and shot them down in the first jet-to-jet dogfight in history.
The UK put the English Electric Canberra into service in 1951. Designed to fly higher and faster than any interceptor it carried no defensive armament.