Phantom F4

 

for sheer versatility and its pretty ubiquitos.

 

Carrier fighter, Landbased interceptor, Strike aircraft, Flack suppression, the list goes on.

Well, I'll cheat a little and claim the Cold War went through 1991, and thus pick the F-15 for the unsurpassed one-sidedness of its kill ratio in U.S. and Israeli service, and for the way even the best threat aircraft have only been playing catch-up ever since it became operational in the 1970s.

 

such a wide range brings so many aircraft, or iterations of a aircraft into scope...

 

I'm going to go with the Mirage III,  this was an aircraft exported all over the world, proven in combat against many and varied foes. And Politically; it came from France, a nation that had recently shown great inepditude in WWII, yet the greater market for fighter jets looks past their surrender monkey, cheese eating ways and buys a French jet against the offerings of the two Cold War super powers - with the pseudo protection alignment can give.

I'd pick both the F-4 and MiG-21.

 

The Phantom dominated Western air forces for thrity plus years, served in roles as diverse as recon, interception, fleet air defence, fighter-bomber, Wild Weasel, target drone, etc, and was built by the thousands.

 

It was a major combatant in three large conflicts (Vietnam, Six Day War, Yom Kippur), and made an invaluable contribution in each.

 

The MiG-21 also deserves a shot at the title because it was built in huge numbers, it served in very many air forces, often providing a quantum leap in air-combat capability over the types it replaced, and had its own fair share of success. What's more, it's still in use in considerable numbers today (like the Phantom, only the Fishbed is more wide-spread).

 

The Fishbed spawned more variants than the Phantom, and mutated into a series of Chinese versions (F-7) and evolutions (F-8), although the latter leaves a lot to be desired.

Their only achievement duting cold war were to fight second rate (and downgraded in capabilities compare to soviet models, I can assure you) syrian planes and second rate pilots in 1982 in Lebanon .And third rate Iraqis in 1991 and post cold war.

F15 is surely an outstanding plane but has no track record during cold war.

 

We have to find plane who have fought symetrical equiped forces with genuine first line soviet planes like Mig 15, Mig 17, Mig 21 or Mig 23 in real war like Korea, Vietnam, Israel wars, or early Angolas war.

 

Mig 15 is a fair contender during Korea war vs US F 86 Sabre

F4 Phantom and F8 are fair contender during Vietnam war vs North Vietnam equiped (and sometime piloted) by Soviets.

Mirage III and SMB2 are fair contenders during 6 days war, Suez war, or 1973 war.While Mig 21 has proven to be a good plane as well with a good pilot but inferior systems and MMI.

South African Mirage F1 and Mirage III had outstanding success with south africans in early Angola war against Cuban piloted Mig 21 and Mig 23.

I would say F8 Crusader , F86 Sabre, F4 Phantom, SMB2, Mirage III, Mirage F1, Mig 17, Mig 15 which have all a proven track record with Mirage III having the best kill ratio (especially when you take in account price).

 

Probably F15 would have dominated sky after 1975 but is largely umproven like M2000 or F16 or F18 or Rafale (while M2000 has achieved the only one kill after cold war agaisnt a symetrically equiped ennemy, i.e a NATO turkish F16D with an Israeli instructor in !  ).

Killing previous generation plane by dozens agaisnt a second rate third world air force does not count.

 

Mig 21 was also a great success and still in service in India or elsewhere.

The Indians were at that point where heavy usage, the through life issue of kapton degradation (when everyone in the west had banned it in military aircraft after the early-mid 80's), coupled with an unforgiving aircraft when landing, coupled with a poor pilot training prog at the time - all added up to it being a widow maker.

the Mig21 is really over rated IMO.  Once the US bought back guns, changed the ROE's and developed the TF school the odds turned considerably

Ironically, the F8 never had the same weapons mount probs of the early F4's etc... which is why in the early days it was called "the Mig killer."

Gee, it sucks that America didn't fight an airwar against the USSR since that's the only country that even came close to possibly qualifying as a "symmetrical opponent" (not that from about 1980 onward it was, but at least it potentially came the closest).  I guess that means that the best fighter of the Cold War period can only be measured by its record in non-American use.  Well, that cuts waaaay back on the F-4's cache.  Oddly enough, it certainly increases the importance of the various Mirages, though.