The year is 3000, and we can choose only ten aircraft for the Cold War Hangar of Fame. To help us choose the right aircraft, we consulted several brilliant authors: Joe Coles, Michael Pryce, and Jonathan Glancey. We also spoke to two people with hands-on experience: an Air Chief Marshal and a pilot of the fastest spy plane in history. We left two spaces in the museum for readers to choose; leave your selection in the comments below, and tell us why it must be included.

TRIGGER WARNING: The B-52 does not make our list, and the reason is simple: from next year, more of its service life will have been spent in the post-Cold War era than in the Cold War itself. By the year 3000, that imbalance will be even more pronounced. You may, however, argue for its inclusion in the comments section.

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8: De Havilland Comet 4 ‘Geoffrey’s jet-age jet sage’

Though not a warplane, Comet G-APDI was Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s transport to the United States; as such, it symbolised Britain’s greatest Cold War victory: avoiding involvement in the calamitous Vietnam War. We could have chosen one of several types of aircraft Wilson used for his trips to America, but the Comet 4 was the first and the most beautiful.

It seemed natural that Britain, as the US’ greatest ally, would send troops in support of the American-led war in Vietnam. Beyond the Korean War, Britain had also been actively involved in several post-colonial conflicts. But Wilson refused, citing Britain’s commitment to the fighting in Borneo as one reason. He also explained that, as Britain had been chair of the Geneva conference of 1954 that had legally divided Vietnam, British involvement would be illegal. US President Lyndon B. Johnson was unimpressed with this explanation and bitterly disappointed by a British leader he considered ‘tricky’, and by a Britain he believed took more than it gave from ‘the Special Relationship’. Wilson could not support the war. His party was weak and divided, and much of the British public fiercely opposed the war, particularly the aerial bombing campaign, Operation Rolling Thunder.

Wilson headed to Washington. The subject of British involvement had been discussed for a long time, notably during the 1964 trip, but in ’65 he made it clear he would withhold support. Unlike Australia and New Zealand, Britain would not be taking part. Despite this, Secretary of State for Defence Denis Healey and his close friend, US Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara, remained on good terms.

Britain was spared the prolonged human pain and enormous financial cost that involvement in Vietnam would have inevitably entailed. Despite many bemoaning Wilson’s Government’s cancellation of BAC’s TSR-2 bomber and Hawker Siddeley’s P1154 fighter, it is worth considering how many aircraft – and more importantly, men – would have been lost had Britain been…mired in the bloody jungle hell of Vietnam.

The transport aircraft that took Healey and Wilson to the United States saved likely many more British lives than any other aircraft type on this list. Though symbolic, this is why the Comet 4 must be included.

7: Reims/Cessna F172 ‘The Helsinki Angelboy’

“I see a white sports aeroplane, maybe a Yak-12, do I have permission to engage?”

– MiG-23 pilot Senior Lieutenant A. Puchnin

Mathias Rust was only 18 when he took off from Helsinki in his Cessna 172, intending to land in Red Square. He had no permission to do this and would have to pass the largest integrated air-defence system in history. Rust would be entering a Soviet air-defence network of staggering scale. More than 10,000 air-surveillance radars covered the USSR and allied territories, providing virtually complete medium- and high-altitude coverage. As the little aircraft approached the capital, it would face interceptor fighters, surface-to-air missile batteries and ground-based guns. A Cessna could not realistically withstand a direct (or indirect) missile hit, and its aluminium skin offered no meaningful protection against cannon fire. It was a 556-mile journey, around five and a half hours at typical speeds. At one point he flew low to avoid bad weather, inadvertently avoiding radar. He wasn’t trying to hide: he wanted to be detected. But he did fly low, averaging 1,000 feet, and his small, low aircraft was easy to lose in radar coverage gaps. Adding to the confusion, a light aircraft is not a typical intruder and is a common sight, so at times it was mistaken for local aircraft. His extraordinary journey had begun on 13 May 1987 at a small airfield in West Germany. He flew via the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Norway and Sweden before reaching Finland, from where he departed Helsinki-Malmi Airport for Moscow on 28 May.

This idealistic young man wanted to deliver a message of peace that he hoped would help end the Cold War. That he wasn’t blasted from the sky is extraordinary and relied on an extremely unlikely series of events. Soviet air defences were less than trigger-happy, partly because the painful memory of civilian airliners being accidentally shot down was still raw. Rust also benefited from freakish good timing: 28 May was Soviet Border Guards’ Day. Border Guards Day was a major Soviet holiday, with festivities involving drinking. The Los Angeles Times, citing the Soviet newspaper Moscow Pravda, reported that at least 100 border guards had been detained for drunken behaviour in Moscow’s Gorky Park.

Crucially, the overhead trolleybus wires above Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge had been temporarily removed for maintenance; had they been there, he would have been sliced to ribbons. He ruled out Red Square itself as too busy, while landing inside the Kremlin could have had him ‘disappeared’ and the event denied. After landing, he was arrested.

Heads rolled within the Soviet military leadership and the PVO (Soviet Air Defence Forces) for this humiliation, including Alexander Koldunov, the air-defence commander and decorated Second World War fighter ace. He was charged with Illegal crossing of the Soviet border, violating international flight regulations — and the rather fun crime of malicious hooliganism. Rust was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment but was released in 1988 after serving about 14 months.

The whole story is hard to believe, but it’s true: a hopeful, strange Cold War fable. His 172 in our hangar reminds us that the Cold War largely affected civilians, not those bound by military thinking. Today, his aircraft is displayed at the Deutsches Technikmuseum in Berlin, but in the post-national age of the year 3000, we can pinch it for our museum.

6: Republic F-105 Thunderchief ‘The Thud’

“However, while the Thud was putting in its time, pretty well on its way to being replaced by the likes of the F-4C, something not so different happened. We decided to go for another no-win war, to see how much we could waste without really offending anybody on the other side; and who wound up in the forefront of the air war over Southeast Asia? You betcha, the Thud.”

– Colonel Jack Broughton USAF (Retd), from foreword of Republic F-105 Thunderchief by David Anderton, Osprey, 1983

Nothing embodies the Cold War better than the Republic F-105 Thunderchief.

The F-105 was created as a single-seat, supersonic nuclear strike fighter-bomber capable of penetrating Soviet airspace at very low altitude, delivering one nuclear weapon, and escaping at high speed. The single pilot was there to deliver a holocaust with a one-megaton bomb. The mission was officially a genocidal, not suicidal mission, but should the pilot wish to survive, his odds were bleak. Low-level flying, massed enemy defences, and the likelihood of returning to a nuked base all worked against him. As an angel of death, the F-105 looked the part: a massive silver claw, built from vicious, slashing angles.

Among the F-105 Thunderchief’s many striking visual features were the razor-sharp, swept-forward air intakes, and the man behind them had an equally exciting life. Antonio Ferri was an Italian aero engineer. Three days after the Germans occupied Rome in 1943, Ferri snuck his way back into his facility, destroyed vital equipment, took research and disappeared ‘underground’.