In a selection of the American magazine Popular Mechanics, the coolest, according to the authors of the publication, aircraft that took off for the first time in the past four decades are named. Among them are three aircraft that took off for the first time in modern Russia.
In particular, the coolest aircraft of 1988 was the Soviet (Ukrainian) An-225 Mriya. The publication notes that this aircraft, originally intended for the transport of spacecraft, has become the world's most cargo-lifting aircraft.
The plane of 1998 was the Russian Be-200 Altair, intended, in particular, for extinguishing forest fires.
Aircraft of 2000 named the Russian (Soviet) MiG-1.44 MFI – the prototype of the fifth generation fighter. The publication notes that after the first flight, which revealed many of the shortcomings of the aircraft, work on it was discontinued.
The plane of 2010 was the Su-57, a Russian fifth-generation fighter.
In April 2020, The National Interest magazine stated that the failures of the Russian promising Su-57 fighter are explained by the curtailment of work on an experimental prototype of the fifth-generation Soviet fighter MiG-1.44 MFI (from “multifunctional front-line fighter”).
In August 2019, a flight copy of the MiG-1.44 MFI experimental prototype was spotted in a static parking lot for demonstration to visitors of the 2019 International Aviation and Space Salon (MAKS-2019).
