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Deviousness `ChewedKandi has certainly gone out of her way to keep the vector community on the right path. Always making sure that her talents are infinitely scalable, Sharon has put her bezier curves to excellent use, and firmly anchored herself as an inspirational leader. We're absolutely delighted to bestow the Deviousness Award for June 2013 to `ChewedKandi. Congratulations, Sharon! Read More
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Sta.sh
Now as far as Fighters are concerned, you'll notice that the three large sized 5th Generation Fighters (F-22, Pak-Fa and J-20) place their radar hotspots (most notably intakes) on the bottom of the aircraft. This is to evade aerial based radar and to allow them to present them a radar dead-zone while maneuvering by exposing the top of their aircraft to the radar source. In otherwords, while the forward intakes are notably well placed, the outboard engines, the mere fact of being external being a no-no for fighter design, the intakes over potential shields against radar detection is particularly problematic. Outward angled stabilizers however, are a good choice for fighters since they provide superior maneuverability characteristics to both vertical and inward angled stabilizers.
I imagine that the forward intakes are indicative of either a a 3/4 engine design, or that the extra intakes are for a VTOL powerplant.
There are Fighter Aircraft that do get re-outfitted for recon duty going as far back as WWII (WWI was more Recon aircraft being re-outfitted for combat duty), but generally, if you are going to design an aircraft that performs a second duty along with being recon, you'd likely see it being a Recon/Attacker since an Attacker's ground oriented primary functions all benefit from the same "Vs Ground" orientation of radar evasion that a recon aircraft would benefit from. "Recon/Fighters" generally favor fighter characteristics since... like said before, they are re-purposed fighter aircraft.
Hope that helps, Cheers ^_^
Recon planes are generally distinct from fighters, though. It depends on the nature of the specialization. Nowadays, recon planes are recon planes; they carry a ton of electronics hardware so they can fly nap-of-the-earth and through canyons, and burn through any enemy electronic countermeasures, jamming, or targeting sensors. This makes them capable of flying through places other planes can't get to, and impossible to touch or see; however, they have little to no strike capacity of their own. They are really good at supplementing attack wings because of their electronics specialization and their ability to relay mission-critical information during combat. They're vulnerable sometimes but also force multipliers because they increase the effectiveness of the attack forces they fly in concert with, while decreasing the enemy's effectiveness.
There are recon planes that are also fighters, but this is generally an airframe that is very modular or universal, and the recon variant has weapons and targeting stripped for extra sensors, radar, and computing resources. The F-4 Phantom was used by all branches of the US military for about 20 years, most prominently in Vietnam; it is still flown by the Israeli Air Force (almost certainly the best in the world, plane-for-plane). It's good to look into it the design history of that plane to have a better understanding of what kind of airframe needs should be accounted for when designing a multi-role warplane. Important to note, however, that the F-4 was meant to be used and was designed for a fighter-bomber/air superiority role, and was only found in practice to be capable of a broader range of activities; so it was still supplemented in recon roles by specialized planes like the Intruder (specifically as the EA-6B Prowler electronic warfare variant, still in service) and the F-111 Aardvark.
Recent examples of multi-role warplanes are the Eurofighter Typhoon and F-35. I would pay more attention to the design behind the Typhoon than the Lightning II. A ton of drama and statistical squabbling surrounds the performance metrics and actual combat viability of the F-35 platform.