In article ,
Emmanuel Gustin wrote:
"Charles Talleyrand" wrote in message
...

Albatros (not clearly better than a Spad)

It was in service a few crucial months earlier, however,
and its advantage was extended by the initial low production
rate of the SPAD.

Fokker Eindekker

The Eindecker could be claimed to be the *only* fighter of
its time. However, in terms of performance and handling, it
was a rather mediocre aircraft, and its time of superiority
was fairly short.

Me-262

A contemporary with the roughly equivalent Meteor.

F-4 (clearly better than the Mig-21 and the Mirage (maybe))

Not in a dogfight. I admit that it could carry more bombs :-)

I think one aircraft that might be a good candidate is the
Polikarpov I-16, a revolutionary aircraft for its time, and
far ahead of anything until the first Bf 109s entered service.

I'd go for the *just* post-war aircraft, if only because their
competition had been removed! Neuport Nightjar or perhaps Fairey
Flycatcher post-WW1, maybe De Havilland Vampire or Gloster Meteor
IV (a big advance on the wartime Meteor) post WW2. Not. on
paper, perhaps a huge advance on the wartime types, but with all
the bugs worked out, better performance (enough!), better agility,
and familiar enough for available pilots to make the most of them.

Outside those limits, the i-16 is a good choice - a revlutionary
design, and sofar ahead of the competition from other nations as
to be ridiculous. The only trouble was figuring out WYF to do with
it, and even the Soviets weren't that sure, as witness the flip-
flopping back to biplane designs with the I-15bis and the I-153.
Without any way of really testing it there was no way of knowing they'd
really, really got it right - as they had.

Now, with not-fighters the answer is easy. EE Canberra.. Still peerless,
though admittedly as a recon. platform..

--
Andy Breen ~ Interplanetary Scintillation Research Group
http://users.aber.ac.uk/azb/
Feng Shui: an ancient oriental art for extracting
money from the gullible (Martin Sinclair)