My wife came home from work one day telling me about this strange plane she'd seen fly over on her drive home.
"It was a small jet and it had triangle shaped wings."
Hmmmmm. Not many delta-winged airplanes flying around these days.
F-102? Long gone.
B-58? Not a chance.
F-106? All turned into target drones and shot down years ago.
Concorde? Long since retired.
Mirage 2000? Maybe, but what would one be doing in Ohio?
Wait, could it be?
"Did it have a tail like a normal airplane or was it all wing?"
"It had a tail."
Ah ha! I brought up a picture and sure enough, she'd seen a MiG-21!
I got my first look at a MiG-21 a few years back while I was still flying tankers. I was sitting out on the ramp at Rickenbacker when I heard a jet take off with afterburner lit.
At first I figured it for one of the F-16s from Springfield or Toledo. It wasn't unheard of to see them beating up the pattern at Rickenbacker. I looked over anyway and Holeeeeee Shit! That's a Fishbed! Yep, my old adversary from the Cold War days except now it was somebody's expensive toy.
Slovak MiG-21 in full blower (afterburner)
What's a Fishbed? Heck if I know. It's just another one of those NATO code names we came up with. F for Fighter and two syllables for jet. The Russians just called it a MiG-21 but they nicknamed it the "Balalaika" because it was shaped like the musical instrument.
The guy on the right is playing an electric Balalaika.
The MiG-21 is one of the most successful fighter aircraft ever built by
anyone. Designed in the mid 1950s it's still in service with 17 countries. Over 11,500 were produced in Russia, India and Czechoslovakia plus 2,400 of its Chinese copy the Chengdu J-7. It was in production from 1959 all the way to 1985. It's had six decades of service with over 60 countries, including the United States (more on that later).
Early Fishbeds had the canopy hinged at the front and a smaller shock cone in the nose. Later models have the canopy hinged at one side.
So what made the MiG-21 so great? Several reasons.
1. It's fast. Mach 1.7 or so. Not the fastest, but plenty fast enough. It could outrun anything it couldn't outmaneuver.
2. It's highly maneuverable. The combination of light weight, and excellent aerodynamics gave it incredible turn performance. It could outmaneuver anything it couldn't outrun. Later models were stressed for 8.5 G's and supposedly could hold their own against an early F-16 in the turns. Even as slow as 150 knots it could still track its nose while other jets would be dead in the water.
3. It's very small and hard to see. Roughly the size of a T-38. At 5 miles it's almost invisible compared to a huge, smoke belching F-4 Phantom.
A MiG-21 is roughly the size of an F-5/T-38. A jet that size is almost invisible at 5 miles if it's pointing straight at you.
4. It was reasonably well armed. There were many versions, but the "classic" setup would be two heat seeking AA-2 missiles (a copy of the US Sidewinder) plus a 23mm cannon. Perfect for close in dogfights or hit-and-run attacks, at which it excelled.
Typical 1960s fighter cockpit. Note the radar scope in the center. Some civilian owners have removed the large gunsight to improve visibility.
5. It was cheap to build. Quantity has its own quality.
6. It was simple and easy to maintain. They could easily be kept flying by less developed countries who frequently relied on poorly trained conscripts.
This shows the relatively small size of the MiG. This is a MiG-21bis (improved) in Slovak markings. The later models had a larger "hump" behind the cockpit.
The closest US counterpart would be either the F-5 or the F-104, both lightweight fighters. The difference being that the MiG is almost as fast as the F-104 but turns like the F-5.
We first encountered MiG-21 during the Vietnam conflict. There are many reasons for the generally disappointing performance of US Air Force and Navy fighters in Vietnam. That's a whole diary unto itself. One of those reasons was that the MiG-21 turned out to be a pretty damn good aircraft.
This is the classic Soviet color scheme. Silver with dark green. I had a plastic model that looked just like this when I was a kid.
How good was it? Here are a few quotes from Steve Davies' book
Red Eagles: America's Secret MiGs by the Americans who got to fly the MiGs at Tonopah:
The MiG -21 was a super airplane that flies as good as it looks.
USAF MiG-17 (front), MiG-21 (rear) plus a pair of F-5s.
We were learning that once supersonic you could pull the throttle back to mil power and it would stay supersonic for a long time. It would almost supercruise, it was so clean. This is what we’d seen in tactics in Vietnam – the MiG-21 pilot would run away, climb to a higher altitude while supersonic, and then he could sit there for a long time without burning a lot of fuel.
If the North Vietnamese Air Force had been any good, they could have really kicked butt in Vietnam.
The F-4, which was a mainstay of the Air Force, Navy and Marines in Vietnam had originally been designed as a high-speed interceptor and ground-attack aircraft for the Navy. It was built to go fast in a straight line and shoot somebody with a radar-guided missile from beyond visual range. Dogfighting with nimble little MiGs was not its strong point. Early versions of the Phantom didn't even have a gun, although they could sometimes carry an external gun pod.
The F-4 was built to shoot missiles at long range, not for a "knife fight in a phone booth".
Here's how USAF instructors who flew the MiGs described the outcome:
In the hands of a good pilot, versus the F-4, the MiG-21 wins every time.
Vietnamese ace Nguyễn Nhật Chiêu said much the same thing:
For me personally I preferred the MiG-21 because it was superior in all specifications in climb, speed and armament. The ATOLL missile was very accurate and I scored four kills with the ATOLL. In general combat conditions I was always confident of a kill over a F-4 Phantom when flying a MiG-21.
The North Vietnamese used the MiG-21s for hit and run style attacks. Using their excellent GCI controllers they would vector the MiGs in behind the US formations. Often your first clue that the MiG was there was an AA-2 missile flying up your tailpipe. You know you're having a bad day when....
The aircraft that did best against the MiG-21 was the Navy's supposedly obsolete F-8 Crusader. During the war F-8s shot down 19 MiGs (3 of them MiG-21s) with only 3 losses in air-to-air combat.
Vought F-8 Crusader. The Navy's "Mig Master".
Oh, you know who else did well against the MiG-21? My old friend the B-52. You just
knew I would go there, didn't you? B-52 gunners shot down two MiG-21s in Vietnam. Depending on who you believe, a North Vietnamese MiG-21
may have shot down a single B-52. They claim one of their MiGs got it while we claim it was hit by a SAM. This sort of disparity is common in the "fog of war".
MiG killer. B-52D gunner's station. The gunner sat in the tail on the old "tall tail" models.
It's a tough call, but I'd probably believe the Air Force on this one. First because I'm biased, but secondly the bomber is described as having exploded in mid-air. An AA-2 missile had a fairly small warhead (16 lbs) and being a heat-seeker would most likely take out one of your engine pods. An SA-2 SAM on the other hand had a whopping 430 lb (yikes!) warhead and could very well make you go all explody.
The MiG-21 has seen extensive service with the Indian Air Force since the mid 1960s. Many wondered what would happen when it met its closest US counterpart, the Pakistani Air Force's F-104 Starfighters. Long story short, Pakistan lost several Starfighters. On paper the two planes look like a pretty even match. Both lightweight single-engine/single-seat fighters with heat-seeking missiles and cannon. The big difference was that F-104 could go really fast, and that's about it. The MiG-21 could still go pretty fast and turn on a dime.
The Starfighter never fared very well when it came up against the MiG-21 even though both were designed with the same idea in mind.
The MiG-21 first met its match in the French Mirage III, operated by the Israelis in the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War of 1973. In 1967 the Israeli Mirages accounted for 48 out of 58 kills against the Arab Air Forces. In 1973 a total of 246 Arab aircraft were shot down by Mirage IIIs and its Israeli-built copy the Nesher. A lot of that success must be attributed to the quality of the IAF versus the Arab air forces. However, some of the Egyptian MiGs shot down in 1973 were flown by Russian, ahem, "advisors". Israel also achieved favorable kill ratios with the F-4, but the top Israeli aces made most of their kills in the Mirage. Score one for the Frenchies.
Bane of the MiG-21. Mirage IIIs in IAF markings. The little French Mirage was very popular with Israeli aces.
Up through the 1980s the MiG-21 was involved on one side or the other (and sometimes both) in just about any conflict. Iran-Iraq, Cuba in Angola, India vs Pakistan, Egypt vs Libya, Ethiopia vs Somalia you name it. If there was ever an "AK-47 of jets" this is it.
Gratuitous rocket picture. Because rockets are cool.
The MiG-21 is not without flaws. All that maneuverability came at a steep price. It's practically out of fuel the moment it takes off. Most versions lacked a decent radar or a radar-guided missile. It's purely a day, good weather, point-defense aircraft. It can, and has, carried bombs but it's pretty limited in the ground attack role. It can't carry much ordnance and it can't carry it very far. It also lacked air refueling capability, which would have extended its meager range.
Indian MiG-21 in the ground attack role. Not really its strong point. It can't go very far and it can't carry very much.
While a great plane by 1960s standards, by the 1980s the MiG-21 was getting a bit long in the tooth. The Soviets had supplanted it with the MiG-23 and MiG-29, largely because of the Fishbed's short range and requirement for long runways. Advancing Soviet troops would have left their air cover behind as they moved away from their airbases.
So why didn't we build something like this? We tried. Our original "lightweight fighter" concept was the F-104 and it was deeply flawed. We finally succeeded with the F-16 in the late 1970s.
In 1982 the Israeli Air Force put their new F-15s and F-16s to the test and shot down 86 Syrian aircraft, many of them MiG-21s, without sustaining a single loss. Ouch.
Through various updates the MiG-21 has managed to stick around even to this day. China still operates their home-grown copy the J-7. Chinese J-7s have also been exported to several countries including Pakistan and Iran. Most interestingly, some former Soviet clients like Romania have upgraded their MiG-21s with western avionics. Some of the later models with upgraded missiles and avionics are still pretty capable aircraft.
Indian Air Commander with his MiG-21 "Bison". He's totally rockin' that 'stache!
I had the opportunity to fly with a former Navy Top Gun instructor and he gave me this description of the MiG-21:
We greatly overestimated the range of this aircraft. If you're fighting him, you're probably right over his airfield. Keep an eye out for his buddies because he's probably just the first hornet out of the nest.
You can own one of these if you have a spare $150,000 burning a hole in your pocket. I've actually seen them advertised for as little (relatively) as $70,000. I'm not sure I'd be brave enough to fly one. It's only got one engine and if it quits your life now depends on a decades old Soviet ejection seat. The Indian Air Force, after a rash of accidents, started calling them "flying coffins".
So how would the MiG-21 have stacked up in a hypothetical war with the West circa 1980s? My guess is we'd have shot a lot of these down. The question is, would we have shot enough of them down?
In the immortal words of Powers Boothe in Red Dawn:
It was five against one! I got four.