The basic (Assault) carrier fighters are currently size "small", whereas the interceptor and guardian upgrades are "tiny". As pointed out in the modding section by joeball123, the ShipClassDefs.XML seem to indicate the assault fighters should be tiny, yet ShipBlueprintDefs.XML defines them as small.
https://forums.galciv3.com/465767/page/1
If this is just a mistake, and they are supposed to be tiny, this could help explain some of the "carrier fighters are OP" issues - a bunch of small fighters are much tougher than tiny ones.