Initially projected as a maritime reconnaissance version of the Lincoln bomber, itself a development of the famous wartime Lancaster which saw post-war service

In the late 1950s, the Sukhoi Design Bureau, already an established fighter maker, started work on a successor to its Su-9 and Su-11 single-engined interceptors

Brought out in the late 1970s as a successor to the obsolete Tu-126 airborne early warning aircraft, the A-50 co-developed by the Il'yushin and Beriyev bureaux

The MiG-31 started life as an advanced derivative of the famous MiG-25P interceptor, becoming the first Soviet fourth-generation combat aircraft. First flown in