A nice slideshow here. Post your favorite MIG!
Personally, I love the MIG-15 with its deadly combination of agility and firepower which gave the West a rude awakening in Korea:
A nice slideshow here. Post your favorite MIG!
Personally, I love the MIG-15 with its deadly combination of agility and firepower which gave the West a rude awakening in Korea:
MIG 3 because it looks like it took style pointers from the Spitfire, imho.
MiG-25 “Foxbat”: mean looks and enormous speed.
(excerpt from some print source somewhere)The India Air Force lost its 5th Mig-29 jet this year on Thursday. Around 10-12 laborers and a tractor driver had a narrow escape when the aircraft fell down.
I like the old MIG 15s and the US counterparts the best.
My choice is the MiG-21 Balalaika – a genuine flying legend.
MiG 21 - YAF
An airplane with a couple of truly unique characteristics, loved and appreciated by pilots and technicians evenly, born in 1956, flown in more or less 50 countries, and still going strong even today while being active in 18 air forces of the world. Although its 54 years of service may be nearing an end, it can arguably be said that the last MiG-21 pilot hasn’t been born yet.
Torn between the Ye266 record holder (modified Mig25), the Mig 21 “Analogue” Tu144 scale prototype, and the Mig31 Foxhound (re-engined, two-seater Foxbat, in effect).
FTG, interesting to me is that the standard Mig25 Foxbat took 144 miles (say, 200km) to make a 180 degree turn at mach 2.1, meaning it travels that far before being able to redirect and have a second shot at its’ target. To me, that always seemed to be a heavy manoeuverability disadvantage.
Kind and Respectful Regards, Uyraell.
like Nick , i bet on Mig-15 also for beauty of forms.
Alongside Sabre It was best of sub-sonic jet aviation.
On first impressions I was going to say that the MIG3 had its cockpit a lot further back than a Spitfire and that the wing shape and root looked completely wrong, but on checking some images of Spitfires you’re correct that there are strong similarities in some respects.
But in other respects it just looks like a brutal attempt to imitate some of those design features without keeping any of the graceful lines and features of the Spitfire.
That’s because it actually has more in common with the Dewoitine 520.
Essentially, the Mig3 is a copy of the Dewoitine 520, as the Russians obtained the design schematics via espionage, from French Communist sympathisers working at the factories where the D520 was made.
The minor similarities with the Spitfire come about because the D520 was adapted from the Hispano Suiza Xcrs engine family (which was produced by the Russians as the Klimov 105 in any case) to the RR Merlin of the Spitfire, which Dewoitine would have produced as the D521. The D521 was a D520 powered by a Merlin III (iIrc) and the Russians ‘inherited’ the schematics which detailed both sets of engine mounts.
This being so, the exterior panels on the D521 and D520 have a strong resemblance to those of the Mig3 “cousin”.
Of similar note is that the cockpit position of the Mig3 is very close to that of the D520/D521, again for the reasons given.
(It could in essence be argued that the NKVD turned up at Artem Mikoyan’s OKB {Design Bureau} with a set of Dewoitine 520/521 schematic drawings in hand and issued the Order: “Build this”… Which is pretty much what happened regarding the Klimov engine Mikoyan’s Mig 3 was powered by. Of relevance also is that the Mig 3 was designed as a “High Altlitude Fighter” and was reasonably successful in that role once the supercharger issues had been sorted out. Where the Mig 3 fell down was in the armaments department, having only a 12.7mm Beresin machine-gun and a 20mm cannon by Beresin or Shpagin also. The airframe was unable to be adapted to carry more or better weapons (ShVAk 20mm) , which is essentially why little is seen or mentioned of it after roughly mid-1943. Other, better, cheaper designs were by then in being, and high-altitude combat was by then reasonably rare in any case.)
Kind and Respectful Regards RS* my Aussie mate, Uyraell.