Strana 79
BUILT
MiG-21bis, c/n 75061904, 2 Fighter Squadron, Taszár Air Force Base, Hungary, 1993
MiG-21bis, Free Libyan Air Force, Tobruk, Libya, November 2011
Ground personnel from Taszár Air Base sprayed
a special paint scheme on the MiG-21bis in 1992.
The purpose of the coloring was to represent
the enemy aircraft in combat training. The color
scheme shown here is a representation of the
aircraft’s appearance at the 1993 International
Air Tattoo in Fairford. The aircraft named Capeti
(shark) 1904 is currently on display at the
Szolnok Air Museum in a similar color scheme
to the one it flew in 1992.
The Free Libyan national army, under the
leadership of General Khalifa Haftar, occupied
several air bases after its formation, some of
which yielded airworthy examples of aircraft
abandoned by forces loyal to Muammar
Gaddafi. One of these was this one, which
was subsequently coded “800” and was flown
by pilots of the Free Libyan National Army.
The Free National Army, under Haftar’s
leadership, added to their inventory aircraft
from occupied airfields (MiG-21s, MiG-23s,
Mirage F-1s and Su-22s) and purchased
other ones from foreign sources (these again
were MiG-21s and 23s, along with Mi-24/35
helicopters). The camouflage scheme of
this particular aircraft hails from the days of
Khaddafi and was first displayed at Lavex in
2007 in Tripoli. The upper and side surfaces of
this plane were in sand, brown and green, the
lower surfaces were painted a light blue-grey.
The national insignias on the upper surfaces
of the wing remained the pre-revolutionary
Libyan ones.
INFO Eduard
79
July 2025