Lockheed CL-1200 / X-27 Lancer

[riggerrob]

The only recall a plan to build and sell Mig 21's as a low cost fighter but that made as much sense as building a reverse engineered copy when so many Mig 21's were available for less money.

There was an April Fools’ Joke about the Royal Canadian Air Force buying MiG 21s.
Silly you could purchase Communist-surplus MiGs for a fraction of the price of North American-built airplanes.

Back during 1993, the (American) FAA placed a temporary ban on the importation of any more foreign-built airplanes, simply to allow FAA bureaucrats time to catch up on all the paperwork for recently-imported: Antonovs, Cheetahs, Delphins, Drakkens, Galebs, Gemsboks. L-39s, MiGs, Nanjings, Sukhois, Yakovlevs, etc.
Most imported warbirds were registered in the experimental, exhibition or restricted categories.
I was working for Butler Parachutes at the time and packed a bewildering array of Pilot emergency parachutes for warbird, aerobatic, glider, etc. pilots.
Most of those communist-surplus airplanes got their avionics upgraded to 1990s North American standards, partly to allow them to talk with North American air traffic controllers and partly to avoid hassles with sourcing radio parts from Eastern Europe. I suspect that some of those communist-surplus airplanes were “sold out the back gate.”
Hah!
Hah!