The Flying Top 100

Posted 19 July 2012

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Photo By Thinh D. Nguyen

The widely read aviation magazine Flying released its list of the 101 best, most significant, and most compelling flying machine designs of all time on 19 July 2012. Given the magazine’s general and corporate aviation emphasis, the editors chose the Piper Cub as their number-one aircraft. The list, which covers kitplanes to the Hindenburg, included eight legacy and current Lockheed Martin aircraft. The C-130 Hercules was the highest ranked, coming in at number thirteen. The others were the Constellation (50); U-2 Dragon Lady (60); P-38 Lightning (72); F-16 Fighting Falcon (75); F-22 Raptor (81); SR-71 ‘Blackbird’ (89); and B-24 Liberator (98). The list took six months to create and was written by the editors of Flying along with special contributors.

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