Reply #18

MiG-21s are damned cheap to operate and maintain compared to anything more contemporary, and for a lot of countries they don't need hardware much more involved than that. The Syrian pilot who defected to Jordan the other day was flying one, for instance.

The F-4's never really been anything but a pretty solid aircraft, and was obviously built well if they're still using that many, so it's the same sort of deal only on a higher "tier" so to speak.

There's a handful of MiG-19s and F-5s still in service as front-line fighters, but that's getting into levels of thrift that are sort of silly.