1.5: When Students...

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Question #5: When students of the Cold War talk about Fishbed, Flanker, Fulcrum, and Flogger, what are they referring to?

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Congrats, you finally lost me :) (Though I'm guessing they are warheads.)

(Google tells me I was wrong. Dang.)

yeah, no idea

All these are NATO designations of Soviet warplanes. Since the names have two syllables, we know they are jets.

The fishbed, flogger, and fulcrum are products of the Mikoyan Gurevich design bureau. They are known as the MiG-21, MiG-23, and MiG-29, respectively.

The flanker is a pruduct of the Sukhoi design bureau. It is known as the Su-27.

NATO designations for prop (including turboprop) planes are one syllable, e.g. "Bear" for the Tu-95.

Actually, these were the names of Santa's reindeer in Old Russian...on Flanker, on Flogger, on Fulcrum to deliver Vissarionovich's presents to the peasants

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