The year is 1966. A US F-4 Phantom patrols the skies over Vietnam. Its massive, smoking
twin J79-GE-17 engines establish its presence.
The radar indicates an incoming bogie, but from the cockpit, the F- 4 pilot can barely
make out a mere dot in the sky. After his AIM-7 Sparrow Missiles miss the mark, the
pilot finds himself in a dogfight with a faster, more nimble opponent with a climbing rate
that’s just a hair faster than the Phantom. The opponent is piloting a machine so versatile,
it would eventually become the most-produced supersonic jet aircraft in aviation history.
[Fade in Title Card]
As the Cold War began ramping up in the early to mid-fifties, both US and Soviet forces
struggled to gain the upper hand.
The US began cranking out what would be known as Century Series fighters — including the
North American F-100 Super Sabre, the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, and of course, the McDonnell
Douglas F-4 Phantom II among others. Each of these fighters was exceptional, even if
they didn’t end up proving particularly effective in their intended roles.
While the US focused on creating superfighters in small numbers, the Soviets took a different
approach. Countering the underlying philosophy of American exceptionalism, the Soviets were
more determined to fill the skies with fleets of less expensive, lightweight, reliable jets.
A strategy that had proved marvelously effective with the ubiquitous AK-47 assault rifle.
By 1959, they were ready to debut what become a crowning achievement in Soviet-era ariel
combat technology — the Mikoyan-Gurevich MIG-21.
A continuation of previous iterations, the subsonic MIG-15 and MIG-17, and the supersonic
MIG-19, the MIG 21 was the first successful Soviet aircraft to combine the fixed-wing,
air-to-air combat aspects of a fighter with the defensive capabilities of an interceptor
in a single machine.
Though the Russians had no official identifier for the new craft, its randomly chosen NATO
identifier was Fishbed, which the Soviets hated.
While earlier prototypes featured a swept-wing design, MIG 21 had Delta wings, earning it
the popular handle Balalaika after the triangular Eastern European folk instrument.
The MIG-21’s main attribute was its size, being that its primary goals were to be inexpensive
and easy to manufacture in bulk while also serving as an effective weapon in both air-to-air
combat and ground-strike missions.
Its wingspan was a mere 23.4 feet, or 7.1 meters, with a length of roughly 40 feet,
or 12 meters, and a stance of just over 13 feet, or just under 4 meters.
The MIG 21 featured a single, gaping inlet nose cone that could move in and out depending
on airspeed. This signature feature helped slow the flow of air from supersonic flight
speed to subsonic speed before entering the engine. While this feature simplified the
design and improved the fighter’s efficiency in the air, it also limited the capacity to
outfit the MIG 21 with long-range radar.
At first glance, the fuselage appears enormous in comparison to the triangular delta wings,
but in reality, the size was limited to a width of only 4 feet, 1 inch — less than
one and a half meters! This economical design earned the jet another nickname — the Pencil.
At 12,600 lbs or about 5,700 kg, the MIG 21 could carry a max payload of 3,310 lbs or
about 1,500 kg — about one-fourth the weight of the F-4 at comparable combat-loaded gross
weights.
Onboard weaponry often included a single 23-mm GSh-23L two-barrel cannon capable of firing
200 rounds, as well as two K13/AA2 Atolls air to air missiles, or two R-60/AA-8Aphids.
What truly set the MIG-21 apart from competitors was its Tumansky R-25 200 Turbojet engine.
With over 15,650 lbs of thrust, the Balilaka could achieve speeds of Mach 2.05 at altitude
and 1.05 at sea level with a relatively low-powered afterburner comparable to the American Lockheed
F-104 Starfighter.
In a dog fight, the MIG-21 could make quick evasive maneuvers by activating its booster
feature which allowed the engine to expel nearly 22,000 lbs of thrust under 2,000 meters
or about one and a quarter miles. This accelerated the engine’s rmp by 2.5%, thus increasing
the compression ratio. A light-loaded aircraft could achieve climb rates between 46,000 and
58,000 ft/min, significantly outpacing the F-4, which topped out at around 41,000 ft/min.
The MIG’s signature delta-wing design aided in both stability and control, which not only
made it a fierce contender in battle but also made it much safer, especially for lower-skilled
pilots with limited training. This feature was a major assist in marketing the jet to
developing countries with restricted pilot pools.
Because the MIG-21 was mass-produced, the aircraft was incredibly inexpensive to make.
Production costs for both the BMP-1 and the F-4 Phantom were several times higher than
the MIG-21.
With its no-nonsense design, efficiency, and affordable cost, the MIG-21 quickly became
known as the AK-47 of fighter jets. According to one US Air Force crew chief, who operated
MIG-21s as adversary aircraft combat training, the craft was like the family car. As long
as it was fueled up, you could pull it out of the garage and start it up.
The MIG 21 first went to war in 1965 operated by Indian pilots against Pakistan, though
they didn’t yet see air combat. The first-ever MIG-21 victory came the following year when
a North Vietnamese pilot intercepted and obliterated a surveillance drone piloted by American Ryan
Firebee — which was cruising at just under 60,000 feet!
However, it was the Middle East that initiated the Fishbed into full-scale war. In 1967,
Soviet-recruited pilots from Egypt, Syria, and Iraq engulfed Israeli fighters. However,
in a preemptive strike that kickstarted the six-day war, Israel successfully wiped out
the majority of the Soviet MIG-21s.
Where the Fishbed excelled was during the early stages of the Vietnam war, where Phantom-Versus-Fishbed
conflicts illustrated the MIG’s strengths. Throughout its run, over 60 countries spanning
four continents flew some variant of the MIG-21, and still serves many nations, including the
Syrian airforce, even to this day.
However, it would be inaccurate to label the MIG-21 an unmitigated success.
Though the Fishbed served in over 30 wars, its combat record is deeply buried in the
red.
One major drawback was that the jet had an incredibly short range — only about 585
nautical miles — almost ⅓ of the F-4. One reason for this was that the internal
fuel tank was placed ahead of the craft’s center of gravity, meaning that as the plane
burned fuel, the center of gravity would shift rearward beyond acceptable parameters. This
resulted in the plane becoming statically unstable, or difficult to keep stable in the
longitudinal pitching plane without excessive attention or strength from the pilot.
This drawback was often countered by carrying fuel externally closer to the center of gravity.
Later Soviet variants and even some Chinese variants, like the MT and SMT — redesigned
the fuel tank layout to help offset this design flaw to improve the jet’s overall range
by about 130 nautical miles, but in doing so limited just about every other performance
figure — including time to altitude and service ceiling — the altitude at which
the plane can no longer maintain a climb rate of more than 100 feet per minute.
Another design drawback was the canopy. Early models had the canopies hinged in the front,
connected to the ejector seat, forming an enclosed capsule around the pilot. This provided
adequate vision for pilots, but at low altitudes, the canopies often took too long to separate,
resulting in the death of many pilots. This tragic flaw led to even more redesigns, with
later models were equipped with more conventional side-hinged, blowoff canopies. The bubble
canopies were also redesigned, enlarged, and made into fuel tanks, which, again, resolved
the center of gravity issue but also restricted the pilot’s vision.
Still, in its lifetime the MIG 21 enjoyed a long production run. Between 1959 and 1985,
a total of 10,645 aircraft were built in the USSR. The basic layout was also repurposed
for numerous other Soviet designs including the Su-9 Interceptor and the E-150 prototype.
Today, it remains the most-produced supersonic fighter of all time, with 11,496 models manufactured
worldwide, and the second most-produced jet of all time, beat only by its younger sibling
the MIG-15.
Today, its legacy is that of a consistent, effective workhorse model. Neither the strongest
nor the fastest, the MIG 21 was perhaps one of the most reliable aircraft ever to sore
the skies.