Best Fighter For It's Time

In article , "Charles Talleyrand"
wrote:

My question is this: Which fighter had the clearest advantage over it's
the other fighters of it's time frame?

Tested but not fielded, I'll vote for the YF-12.
Just the test results changed the whole Soviet approach to attacking CONUS.
Not to mention the first look-down shoot-down doppler radar.
Shooting down a target flying at (IIRC) 1500 feet while ownship cruise at
70,000. Part of this was the missile of course, but no fighter a/c lives
in isolation without it's weapons.

Range, speed, altitude and weapons were clearly superior to anything else
flying at the time.

--
Harry Andreas
Engineering raconteur