BOXART STORY

#70144

Text: Richard Plos

Illustration: Piotr Forkasiewicz

White Shark over a Lighthouse

Cape Arkona is the northernmost tip of the

Rugia island and owes its name to the temple of the ancient Slavic god Svantovit. The

temple was built by the West Slavic tribe of

the Rans, sometimes also called Ruyans.

In the early Middle Ages, the whole of Rugia

was the power and religious center of this

Slavic tribe, which settled on the island in

the seventh century and gradually became

a local military and naval power. However,

the temple, as well as the adjacent town,

was conquered and destroyed by the Danish

king Valdemar I in 1168 after many fights and

clashes. Rans were the last of the western

Slavic tribes and they gave whole the island

Rugia or Ruyan its name (Rügen in German).

After centuries of being part of the Danish

or Swedish kingdoms and then belonging to

France or Prussia, the island eventually became part of Germany. Rugia later became

a popular holiday resort, a status that was

further enhanced by the Nazis, who built the

monumental Prora holiday resort, which

was never completed. Today, there are two

lighthouses right on Cape Arkona, as well as

two military bunker complexes. East German air force planes have certainly overflown them many times as well as the 148

ft (45 m) high white cliffs. Whether a MiG-21PFM with tactical code 22+02 also passed

over them on one of its last flights, we do not

know. But the scenery by Piotr Forkasiewicz

looks great, doesn’t it?

MiG-21s have been flying over the Baltic

Sea since the 1960s. The then German De-

October 2022

mocratic Republic (GDR) was among the

first Warsaw Pact countries to receive the

new supersonic and their first Mach 2 fighter aircraft. The first MiG-21F-13 landed at

Marxwalde airfield, the base of JG 8 wing,

on 4 May 1962, and over the next two years

two further wings converted to the type:

JG 3 at Preschen and JG 9 at Peenemünde.

By the end of 1964, the first MiG-21PFs had

already appeared in the GDR. They were first

assigned to JG 1 stationed at Cottbus-Drewitz as part of the LSK/LV (Luftstreitkräfte/

Luftverteidigung – Air Force/Air Defence).

However, the East German Air Force re-designated these aircraft as MiG-21PFM,

where the M was to emphasize that they

were modernized MiG-21s. Later, however,

JG 8 began to receive further upgraded MiGs

that bore the same designation, now directly from the manufacturer. To distinguish

these two different versions of MiG-21, the

actual MiG-21PFMs were re-designated as

MiG-21SPS. As those familiar with the matter

know, the SPS (Sduv Pogranichnovo Sloja Boundary Layer Blowing, in German Grenzschichtablösung) system was designed to

blow the flaps with air taken from the engine compressor to increase their efficiency at low speeds. The installation of this

system was made possible by the upgraded

R-11F2S-300 engine. The SPS was put into

operation when the flaps were set at 45°, i.e.,

in the landing position. It resulted in a 21,6 kt

(40 km/h) reduction in landing speed compared to the MiG-21F-13. Aircraft equipped with

the GP-9 cannon were then referred to as

MiG-21SPS-K (sometimes written as SPS/K).

The aircraft originally coded 441 was assigned to JG 8 on November 30, 1968 and

transferred to JG 1 stationed at Cottbus/

Holzdorf on May 5, 1975. There it remained

in service until 1990, when it received the

special anniversary painting to say “goodbye”. Thanks to the white base color the aircraft earned the nickname Der Weisse Hai

(White Shark). A total of 24 MiGs-21SPS and

SPS/K survived and stayed in service until

German reunification. With the new designation 20+02, the “White Shark” flew only

a few sorties before it was like all the others

of this type sent to the nearby Drewitz airbase, where also other obsolete and retired

aircraft were collected, following an organizational restructuring. These transfers were

under the responsibility of the Bundeswehrkommando Ost, Abwicklungsstäbe Nord und

Süd (Federal Armed Forces Command East,

Processing Staff North and South), while

the aircraft that were in active service were

handled by the ÜLSt MatWi's Überleitstelle

Materialwirtschaft (Materials Management

Transition Center). At Drewitz, this aircraft

was decommissioned and met its fate on

November 13, 1992, when it was scrapped.

One more aircraft received this attractive

anniversary livery, the one with serial number 944504, which was given the code 22+31

after German reunification. This one escaped scrapping and was put on private display in Eisdorf.

INFO Eduard

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