You can´t have a one sided descision and it is hard to judge for the entire tiime frame.

For the western side runners-up are :

F-86 Sabre (no doubt about it)
F-104 Starfighter (to arm many NATO Forces, although unpopular with the USAF)
F-4 Phantom (NATO workhorse and my favorite)
F-15 Eagle
F-16

WarPac :

MiG-15 (the early jet)
MiG-17 (early but long lasting and much loved)
MiG-21 (developed from pure daylight F-104 like plane, to quite a capable all weather fighter)
MiG-29 (bringing 4th genration aircraft to the WarPac. At least quie on paar with the latest the NATO had when it entered service)
SU-22

I like your list but I think you are over looking a great aircraft from that time period: The Douglas A-4 Skyhawk. The US Navy used them for every possible task, fighter, bomber, tanker, trainer, etc. The Israelis used them with great success, and they formed the back bone of the RNVAF.

[QUOTE=flex297]Lets get real here, folks. What is so much stealthy about Blackbird’s intakes, which resemble a nose of MiG-21 in every way? How could Lockheed specialist calculate a stealth shape for not faceted design with the computer power typical for that time? And if there were able to do that, why for God’s sake the F-117A came out faceted decades later?

The SR-71 was designed using slide rules (no computers), remember its design is over 40 years old. Also, I worked on SR-71’s for 1966 to 1969 in the airframe repair shop and we never had to repair a nose cone that melted. And offically no one has ever said that the SR-71’s (or the A-12’s) were stealth aircraft, what was offically stated that they had a deduced radair cross section.