Cessna 172

Mathias Rust, his borrowed Cessna 172 and assorted KGB goons in Red Square

Younger son had a flying lesson in a Cessna 172 yesterday. When I Googled it this is the first thing that came up.

Mathias Rust (born 1 June 1968) is a German aviator known for his illegal landing near Red Square in Moscow on 28 May 1987. An amateur pilot, he flew from Finland to Moscow, being tracked several times by Soviet air defence and interceptors. The Soviet fighters never received permission to shoot him down, and several times he was mistaken for a friendly aircraft. He landed on Vasilevsky Descent next to Red Square near the Kremlin in the capital of the Soviet Union.
Rust said he wanted to create an "imaginary bridge" to the East, and he has claimed that his flight was intended to reduce tension and suspicion between the two Cold War sides. Rust's flight through a supposedly impregnable air defense system had great effect on the Soviet military and led to the dismissal of many senior officers, including Minister of Defence Marshal of the Soviet Union Sergei Sokolov and the Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Air Defence Forces, former World War II fighter ace pilot Chief Marshal Alexander Koldunov. The incident aided Mikhail Gorbachev in the implementation of his reforms, by allowing him to dismiss numerous military officials opposed to him whilst reducing the prestige of the Soviet military among the populace, thus helping bring an end to the Cold War. - Wikipedia

The Cessna 172 is the most produced aircraft in the world with over 43,000 built, which puts it just ahead of the Russian Polikarpov Po-2 Biplane. There are about 220,000 private aircraft in the USA.