I always have a soft spot for the science-fictiony Avro Vulcan.
And I’ll throw in a vote for a peculiarly Cold War creation, the S-3 Viking: a jet plane that listens for submarines. I get chills thinking about them dropping lines of sonobouys and crisscrossing the waves, listening, trolling their MAD sensor behind, ceaselessly looking for the most elusive prey of all.
Since tagged on. but I popped back in thinking Hind would be second. Usually jack of all trades suck to achieve the balance but it served well. They were fun to shoot in simulators too.
From my childhood, back when I was in Middle School the PR Air Guard flew F-104s, and I hold on to the meory of that stunning sound and fleeting sight overhead. Although it did not have a notable service career as such, the Starfighter just looked like what “supersonic interceptor” must be, in that retro-cool scifi mode.
Also from those warrior-artists at Lockheed, of course, the Blackbird. The Skunkworks team was definitely in the zone when doing that one.
Gotta say, those dudes at Lockheed really had a knack for making something that could go *&^% fast while looking *&^% good.
The Brits however do get plaudits for unique style - the V-bombers and the Lightning were so impressive and different.
The cold war ran from 1945ish to 1989ish. That’s a long time. One could argue that Putin is trying real hard to restart it, or perhaps even that it’s been running for 5-10 years now, unnoticed by most civilians due to the more distracting noisier wars in the Mideast.
The 1950s & early 60s were the heyday of USAF: big budgets, short development cycles, and lots of quirky experiments.
My faves of that era: F-104, B-58, & XB-70. The SR-71 is cliché; *everybody *drools over that one.
After that things slowed down a bunch, even as the effectiveness of the weapons went way up. F-16s are of course my modern fave; nothing else comes close to looking as good or working as well.
Color me old-fashioned, but I don’t like the looks of stealth; F-22 & F-35 both look pudgy & misbegotten. F/A-18, Viggen, Typhoon, Rafale at least look like airplanes should. Though none are as flat pretty / sexy as the F-16.
[QUOTE=LSLGuy;18281187
My faves of that era: F-104, B-58, & XB-70. The SR-71 is cliché; *everybody *drools over that one.[/QUOTE]
OK, well, if the question then is what besides the SR-71…well, in the end days of the Cold War (I was born in 1975), I was fascinated by what was originally known as the F-19 stealth fighter in the popular press. I remember playing the hell out of this game, and making this model, back when it was conjectured to be a curvy stealthy beast, rather than the faceted, angular aircraft it turned out to be. It ended up looking closer to the Testors model of the imagined Mig-37B Ferret stealth fighter, another model I quite enjoyed.
Now, the F-117 ended up not quite living up to the hype, but I still find it a cool aircraft. Otherwise, the A-10 Warthog would have to get my vote. And the F-15 as well.
Little known cold war fact. The Cuban missile crisis was discovered when the CIA questioned soccer fields appearing in areas of Cuba. Soccer wasn’t a Cuban sport, but it was a popular Russian sport. Somebody decided to look and see if there were Russians about. And there was, and yikes, they had missiles.
Blackbird is a no-brainer, but it wasn’t really weaponized other than being a fuselage atop a pair of gigantic roman candles.
For my money, in terms of capability as a platform, speed, looks, etc, it’s hands down the B1-B (“Bone”). The B-52 is far more iconic but the B1B is a stellar aircraft, and the delivery of nuclear weapons was all the rage in the Cold War, so that thing gets my vote.
Predator is not the word I would use, and this goes the same for the A-10, since they both have that same look. Enforcer, now that would be the word I would use. When you see one coming, its going to fuck you up, grind you into the pavement, piss on your broken and battered body, and casually toss a smoke stub at your face, as it flys away.
It might be because it doesn’t really qualify as a Cold War aircraft in terms of service (if at all–its first flight was in mid-1989, and the first operational aircraft wasn’t delivered until late 1993, well after the Cold War.)
but I popped back in thinking Hind would be second. Usually jack of all trades suck to achieve the balance but it served well. They were fun to shoot in simulators too. 
