France and Germany teamed up when they were looking for a new ad­vanced jet trainer and close air support aircraft respectively. The winning design was that of Dassault and Breguet in France and Dornier in Germany, called the Alpha Jet.

The Alpha Jet has high wings with horizontal stabilisers in regular position, both with anhedral. The student and instructor sit behind each other in the cockpit, the instructor higher than the student. The canopy opens in two parts, for each crew member separately. The semi-circular air intakes are below the instructor's seat. After that the air channels run below the wings; there is space between them. The exhausts with externally visible tail pipes are just in front of the vertical stabiliser, which has hardly a dorsal fin. 

The main external recognition point between the Alpha Jet versions is the shape of the nose.

The Alpha Jet A (for Appui Tactique) is the light attack, or close air support version of the Alpha, originally ordered by Germany, but later also by other countries. In Egypt locally produced aircraft are designated Alpha Jet MS1. Both are recognised by the sharply pointed nose.

The E in this basic version, first ordered by France, stands for École, so is clearly is the trainer version. It is recognised by the rounded nose. The Belgians also ordered this version and called it Alpha Jet 1B.

Based on the Alpha Jet MS1 an updated version was made, called the Alpha Jet MS2. It has a cut off sharp nose as key feature. The Alpha Jet 2, at first known as Alpha Jet NGAE (Nouvelle Generation Appui/Ecole), was the Dassault developed modernised version, of which only a prototype was built.