Definitely the Supermarine Spitfire and the Hawker Hunter.
The DeHavilland Mosquito gets honourable mention. 🙂

But to tell the truth, I really wanna say The Handley Page
Victor….fell in love the first time I saw it. It certainly gets
the ‘alien beauty’ and the ‘death-machine-as-art’ awards. 😉

Russia’s Military is really in a poor state and while they may have walked all over poor little Georgia. The rest of the world is hardly impressed…….To me Russia just pulled a Pearl Harbor of the 21st Century. Now the West will re-arm at a far greater pace than Russia could ever hope to compete with……….Russia could have join the free world and been a valued partner within a stronger Europe. Instead it just turn back the clock to the good old days of the USSR! Really, disappointing and the Russian Public will pay the price yet again.:(

What? You must be kidding….

It will take much more than this for Western nations to ramp-up
defense spending. And the Russian military and economy seems
to be growing, while major Western militaries keep seeing less and
less funding sent their way. The USA seems horribly ill-equipped
for another war. A new “cold war” seems to be a pathetic
defense contractor fantasy.

But if you have any solid evidence, please present it.

Whats that on the scorpions wings??

Half fuel tank/half FFAR rocket-pods with Falcon
AAMs clustered around the tips. Though you cannot
see them, there is a mid-wing pod with FFARs too,
IIRC.

The Skynight has some clean lines, but I agree with
the poster who said the Scorpion is truly butt-ugly.

As to the most beautiful, I would have to say the
XB-70, Mirage 4000, Hawker Hunter (both single
and two-seat versions), Saab Draken and Mikoyan
Ye-8 or Ye-166. On the other hand, there are so
many unbuilt projects which are even more beautiful.

“8 ton payload was also confirmed.”

How much of that is carried internally? :rolleyes:

“Recently, there has been a large proliferation of AWACS-type aircraft, with the system now being flown by over 22 air forces worldwide. Since the aircraft are such a massive force multiplier, combined with the fact that they are a incredibly vulnerable assets, I am surprised that there isn’t a huge market for anti-AWACS weapons for the countries not fortunate enough for Airborne radar assets, just a question, are there weapons out there that pose any threat to AWACS forces?”

Going back to the original question, what about stealthy UCAVs approaching from below and above? Say, four Meteor/AIM-120D or KS-172/K-100 snapping-up from ground clutter and another four or so from an equal altitude or higher than the AWACS? Now I am presupposing stealthy and at least high-subsonic UCAVs, so this would be a rather more expensive response than SAMs and unavailable to most militaries for the near future. Still, if AWACS/JSTARS assets are as important as they seem, at present, then perhaps a more significant response is required. On the other hand, enough missiles or UCAVs could certainly overwhelm the AWACS/JSTARS defenses, I would assume. Why endanger 50+ million dollar fighters? And the smaller (assumed) radar signature of a UCAV would certainly increase the probability of surprise.

Just thinking……..

As to the S-37/47 the issue was the forward swept wing.
Sukhoi, like the USA could not get it to be efficient for
a combat aircraft. See details here:

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,1954.0/highlight,fsw.html

As to the MiG, I assume its demise was due to time/money problems.

In the final result, there is just no need for such complex and
expensive aircraft, that includes the Raptor.

Of course if hostilities would ever break out between the very large powers
(i. e., Russia, USA, China, EU), then such aircraft might come back into vogue.
As it is, the Cold War has moved on to economic war. 🙁

My two cents:

F-23
CF-105 Arrow
F-108 Rapier
F-107
Ye-8