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eduard
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Info Eduard - March 2011
HISTORY
MiG-21MF MOSAIC
Martin Ferkl
Aircraft featured by actual Eduard’s
MiG-21MF editions.
eduard
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Info Eduard - March 2011
The MiG-21 was one of a long list of Mikoy-
an-Gurevich products to be integrated into
the armed forces of the Soviet Union, the War-
saw Pact, and allied client states. Its predeces-
sors included such notable types as the MiG-15,
MiG-17 and the supersonic MiG-19.
The roots of this project reach back to the rst
half of the fties. In 1954, the Ye-1 project came
to an end, and was quickly picked up by the
Ye-2. Both had a swept wing. The rst machine
to feature the delta wing was the Ye-4, which
rst took to the air on June 16th, 1955. It was
also demonstrated a year later at the Moscow
aireld Tushino.
The rst of the new line to enter production was
the MiG-21F, which together with the MiG-21P
and F-13 represented the rst generation of the
MiG-21, and was in production through the end
of the fties and the beginning of the sixties.
Subsequent versions included the PF, FL, PFM, R,
S, N and PD, the production of which peaked
at the end of the sixties. The third generation
started production in 1968, which included such
versions as M, SM, MF, SMT, bis among others.
Simultaneously, two-seat training versions were
also produced designated MiG-21U, UM and
US. Production of the MiG-21 ended in 1985,
and was put into service with some fty nations.
Over the course of the cold war, the opponents
of the MiG-21 included the likes of the Northrop
F-5 Freedom Fighter and the Dassault Mirage III.
NATO assigned it the reporting name ‘Fishbed’.
It became the most produced supersonic ghter
in terms of quantity. The new machines came off
Soviet production lines in Moscow, Gorky and
Tbilisi. The MiG-21F-13 was also built under
license in Czechoslovakia and the MiG-21FL,
M and bis in India by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.
The Soviet Union produced 10, 645 examples
of all versions, 194 were built in Czechoslo-
vakia and 657 in India. Outside of the Soviet
Union, the type ew with a long list of nations
on all continents with the exception of Australia.
The MiG-21 participated in combat in Vietnam,
the Indo-Pakistan wars, the Cuban participati-
on in Angola and in the Arab world’s attempt
to eliminate Israel. Thanks to the high volume
of use, the highest number of aces produced
on the type was in Vietnam. The top of the ladder
is occupied by Nguyen Van Coc with nine kills.
The type serving as a ghter-bomber served
with the Soviet Union and other nations of the
Warsaw Pact into the eighties, when it began
to be displaced by the MiG-29 Fulcrum.
This kit allows you to build foremost a model
of the MiG-21MF. This is an export version
of the SM where the ‘M’ signies ‘modernizova-
niy’ and the ‘F’ ‘forsirovannyi’ – or ‘modernized
with afterburning’. In factory documentation,
the type is identied as Izdelye 96F. It was po-
wered by the Tumansky R-13-300 with after-
burning and carried the Sapr-21/RP-22 radar.
The armament was composed of the GS-23-2L
23mm cannon with 200 rounds. The underwing
py
lons could carry a combination of FAB bombs
up to 500kg in size, UB-16-57 rocket pods,
and R-3S, Ch-66, S-24 missiles, as well as R-60
air-to-air missile, including the R-60M. NATO
assigned the MiG-21MF the codename ‘Fishbed J’.
Title photo:
MiG-21M, 4th Fighter Squadron, Pardubice
airbase, Czechoslovakia, summer 1989
Author: Antonin Fidransky