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Boeing B - 17 Flying Fortress

By Vladimir Trendafilovski

The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21, also known by its NATO codename 'Fishbed', is undoubtedly a phenomenon in the field of military aviation - designed over 50 years ago, it remains in service even today. Just as the ubiquitous Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifle, it was a successful product of the Soviet weapons design doctrine - simple, reliable and durable - built in large quantities and distributed throughout the world. Unsurprisingly, this has made the MiG-21 the most produced supersonic jet aircraft in the world with the longest combat aircraft production run in aviation history so far, reaching a total of 11,000+ examples delivered during full 28 years of series production that did not go on in the USSR alone, but also under licence in factories in the former Czechoslovakia and India. Thus, nowadays the MiG-21 series of aircraft still rank as one of top 10 combat aircraft still in service with at least 500 aircraft in an airworthy condition with no less than a dozen user-countries, while the total of aircraft that are still considered in service and on strength is almost double that figure.