Oldest Fighter Jets Still in Service

Migs Mirages Phantoms and Fishbeds Fly For Some 40 Years

Feb 6, 2009

Since WWII more than 100 types of fighter aircraft have seen service. Most only flew for 10-20 years. However a handful have lasted longer

The West has had a number of very successful and long-lived designs. The 1954-vintage “missile with a man in it” F-104 Starfighter, while phased out of USAF service rather quickly, flew with NATO air forces for decades. The Starfigher finished its 50-year run by being retired by the Italian Air Force in 2004. Sweden’s J-35 Saab Draken was produced in small numbers (644) but saw solid service for a half century from 1955-2005 with the last user being the neutral Austrian Defense Force. The F-86 Sabre was the most prolific Western fighter jet with just under 10,000 examples produced. It flew all over the world and fought in a half dozen wars. The Sabre was put to pasture by its last user, the Bolivian Air Force in 1994, some 47 years after its type’s first flight. A handful still fly in the hands of private collectors and it’s a crowd favorite at air shows around the world.

A few old war birds are still flying. France’s Mirage III delta-winged legend first flew in 1956 and saw action over Israel, Kashmir, Angola and the Falklands. A small number of elderly Mirages still fly on active service with Chile, Venezuela, Pakistan, Egypt, Colombia and Argentina. More than 5000 McDonald Douglas F-4 Phantom IIs took to the sky from when it was introduced in 1958 until the line stopped in the 1980s. The air forces of Germany, Japan, South Korea, Turkey and Iran continue to fly the fifty year old F-4 “Flying Brick.” The F-4’s Soviet nemesis, the MiG-21 Fishbed, has flown in 50 countries and is still held in the hangars of no less than 17 of them. The MiG-21 is just slightly older than the F-4, being introduced in 1956. Its 53 years of service may be nearing an end but it can arguably be said that the last MiG-21 pilot hasn’t been born yet. With that in mind, several of its Soviet-era predecessors are still beating it for the title of “oldest jet fighter” for now.

The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17 and its Chinese Shenyang J-5 (Jianjiji-5 - Fighter-5) clone was the East’s answer to the F-86. Of the 10,367 that left the assembly lines an estimated 500 are still held in service around the world. The Air Forces of Russia, Cuba, China, North Korea, Tanzania, Pakistan and Angola are known to still possess somewhat working models although they are not seen anymore as front-line fighters. It first flew in 1950, giving the design a lifespan of currently 59 years in active service and counting.

However the award for the longest life of a jet fighter design (narrowly) goes to the MiG-15. Built from a wholly-Sovet design with German WWII influence and Britain’s famous reverse-engineered Rolls-Royce Nene jet engine MiG-15 took to the sky and shocked the world December 31, 1948. It soon became famous while fighting in China and Korea. It was there that it was on the wrong side of the the first all-jet, air-to-air kill in history over “Mig Alley”. Some 18,000 of the jets were manufactured and they served in almost every Eastern bloc ally air force. Replaced as a front-line fighter by the 1960s it was the East’s primary advanced jet trainer. After the Berlin wall came down the old stubby MiG-15 was retired and hundreds of examples have been seen on four continents rusting away on forgotten grass-covered tarmacs. Albania retired the last combat versions in 2005 while both China and North Korea still own (and fly) a few as trainers. Bottom line is that the 61- year-old MiG-15 design is still flying.

Sources

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Air Force _DPRKAF order of Battle at Scramle, accessed Jan22, 2009.

The copyright of the article Oldest Fighter Jets Still in Service in Modern War is owned by Christopher Eger. Permission to republish Oldest Fighter Jets Still in Service in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.