Winged legend: "Flying Kalashnikov"
Created over half a century ago, a Vietnam War veteran, the MiG-21 aircraft survived all of its “contemporaries” - and remained in the ranks
At the world's largest aerospace museum - the National Museum aviation and astronautics in Washington - there is a remarkable corner of the exposition. Side by side, having slightly turned their nasal intakes to each other, there are two implacable opponents: the American Phantom F-4 and the Soviet MiG-21. Eternal rivals, long-standing enemies, first encountering each other in the Vietnam War - and continuing the confrontation for more than two decades.
But it’s not the neighborhood itself that attracts attention, it just looks perfectly logical. Another thing is noteworthy: how much smaller, more compact and at the same time the light Soviet winged car looks more perfect against the background of its heavyweight rival. Looking at this neighborhood, you understand why the MiG-21, the Soviet pilots who earned the playfully respectful nickname “Balalaika”, and the “flying Kalashnikov” among the US and NATO forces, became the most massive supersonic aircraft in the world. Even at first glance, there is nothing superfluous, nothing accidental, nothing complicated or illogical - it is as simple and perfect in appearance as the Soviet AK. And with closer acquaintance, you understand how much these two symbols of the military power of the USSR - the MiG-21 and the AK - are similar to each other in simplicity and effectiveness of use.
So it is not surprising that the first Soviet jet fighter with a delta wing became the most massive supersonic combat aircraft in stories aviation. In total, almost 11,5 thousands of these machines were produced in the USSR, Czechoslovakia and India! Only these numbers are enough to justifiably call the MiG-21 fighter a record holder. But there are still at least 2500 aircraft manufactured under license in China under the symbol J7 (in the export version - F7). And this at the time, as the most massive American supersonic fighter - the very American "Phantom" - produced in an amount much smaller: 5195 machines.
At the same time, the MiG-21 became not only the most massive, but also one of the longest-lived third-generation jet fighters. Who made the first flight of 9 on January 1956 of the year, it is still in service in 18 countries. Most of the “twenty-first” remains in service in India: 264 aircraft, half of which have recently been modernized and will serve until the 2019 year. In second place is the country that has become the site of the baptism of aircraft: Vietnam. There "on service" still 124 MiG-21 of the last modifications. And its main rival, Phantom, is now serving only in Iran’s aviation, where 225 machines remain in the ranks.
The MiG-21 at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington is next to its American opponents F-4 (left) and F-105 (in the background, in camouflage colors). Photo: Sergey Antonov
"Twenty-first" against "Phantom"
The history of the MiG-21 should begin, perhaps, with the appearance of the first two prototypes - the E-2 with a swept wing and the E-4 with a triangular one. But in order to understand where and how the “twenty-first” has earned its amazing reputation, we will begin the story with the story of the first battles between these planes and their main opponent, Phantom.
Two enemies first met in the sky of Vietnam 23 on April 1966, and three days later the American Phantoms were the first to open a combat account, shooting down MiG-21 missiles. But despite the beginning, so successful for a heavy fighter, it was the appearance of the new MiG-21F-13 (the most massive modification of the first generation fighter) and the MiG-21PF-B (equipped with a radar sight interceptor in a tropical climate version) and lose the sense of impunity.
"Twenty-first" significantly exceeded the capabilities of their predecessors - Chinese-made Subsonic MiG-17Fs and the few MiG-15s received from the USSR. They had air-to-air missiles, were much faster and more maneuverable, and most importantly, skillfully used guidance tactics from ground-based radar posts. In addition, the new fighters made great use of the capabilities of their less high-speed counterparts, the "seventeenth". They were now assigned the role of beaters, displacing the "Phantoms" from low altitudes, where they had the advantage, to the middle ones, where the more maneuverable MiG-21 easily entered the tail of the F-4 and knocked them down.
By the way, it was the experience of using the MiG-21 in Vietnam that made the relying exclusively on the rocket weapon Soviet military leadership to reconsider the views and return the gun armament on the aircraft. Out of every 11 air-to-air C-5 Soviet air-to-air missiles, the target was initially hit by one or two, although the very fact of launching missiles from the rear hemisphere seriously frightened American pilots, forcing them to quickly get out of combat. But gun shells caliber 30 mm where rarely passed by. When the Vietnamese pilots began to receive in sufficient numbers Soviet guided R-3С missiles, they were K-13, the Soviet version of the AIM-9B Sidewinder missile that was armed with Phantom, the situation changed dramatically.
With this in mind, it is only natural that from May to December 1966, the Americans lost 47 aircraft in air battles, destroying only 12 enemy fighters. It all affected: the best maneuverability of the MiG-21 in turns compared with the F-4, and the best controllability of the Soviet fighter, and the greater thrust-to-weight ratio of the “twenty-first”. These advantages were balanced by the inadequate review of the MiG pilot, the weakness of the radar and the lack of development of missile weapons. As a result, in the first stage of the air war in Vietnam (from April 1965-th to November 1968-th), the advantage was left to the pilots of North Vietnam. In 268 air battles, they shot down an 244 American aircraft, losing just their 85. Among these losses were the 27 "Phantoms" - and only the 20 MiG-21. And during the last year of the war, 1972, an 201 air battle took place in the air over Vietnam, in which the Vietnamese fighter and the American 54 were lost. Among them, the 90 MiG-37 and 21 "Phantom" - more than indicative ratio. And all in all, in the “twenty-first” 74, we managed to write 1972 US aircraft of various types and models into my account. It is noteworthy that many films about the war in Vietnam have been made in the USA, but not a single one of any known fighter fighter pilots would be the main characters. There was clearly nothing to be proud of the Americans in the battles for the Vietnamese sky.
Vietnamese pilots rush to their planes to engage in battle with the approaching enemy. Photo: super-arsenal.ru
To fight not by number, but by skill
To fight not by number, but by skill
In 1973, US troops left South Vietnam, the country united under the name Socialist Republic of Vietnam, and the war ended. But the confrontation between the MiG-21 and the "Phantoms" did not end. In the same year in October in the Middle East a transient broke out - only 18 days! - The war, called the Doomsday War. And the opponents who had already managed to recognize and respect each other again came together in it.
According to aviation history experts, in Vietnam, the MiG-21 best of all proved to be an interceptor - although he, in fact, was not his original idea. Nevertheless, the fighter’s avionics, its thrust-to-weight ratio and climb rate, as well as speed, allowed it to play this role. And in the Doomsday War, the potential of the “twenty-first” as a maneuverable front-line fighter was best revealed.
Moreover, it was not so much the Phantoms that were in service with the Israeli Air Force that helped cover the Mirage fighters of French production that helped cover them to reveal these capabilities of the MiG-21. And here, I must say, met opponents, much more similar to each other. Both Soviet and French fighters were distinguished above all by high maneuverability, had very similar weapons - 30-millimeter cannon and air-to-air missiles with thermal homing heads, and most importantly, were close "ideologically." After all, he and the other were created as front-line fighters, whose main task was to conduct a maneuverable air battle.
As the participants of those events recall, the Egyptian pilots were not very well prepared and did not differ in initiative and courage. In particular, they seldom could take advantage of the excellent maneuverability of the “twenty first” and therefore introduced the rule “Having seen the Mirage”, do not turn. But they had much closer ties with the USSR and underwent serious aerobatic and tactical training under the leadership of Soviet pilots-instructors Syrian pilots showed their best, using all the opportunities provided by the MiG-21. As a result, in just 18 days of that short-term war, Syrian air force fighters conducted air combat over the Golan Heights and Lebanon, knocking down the enemy's 260 aircraft and losing just their 105! You must agree that the exponential ratio, especially considering that they were opposed by well-trained and able to use all the capabilities of their “Phantoms” and “Mirage” Israeli pilots. But the advantage of the Soviet aircraft was fully manifested, which led to such significant results of the battles.
According to aviation historians, it was the Doomsday War that finally brought back the concept of a close maneuverable group battle to the tactical arsenal of jet aircraft. The ideology of a single interception, which dominated the idea of the role of jet fighters, lost its dominant position: they began to use it only to destroy specific targets such as high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft. And for Soviet aviation, the main conclusion from the events of October 1973 was the understanding that the tactical, combat and modernization capabilities of the MiG-21 are far from being exhausted and the aircraft can remain in service for more than one year. But then, of course, no one suspected that this was not about years - about decades.
How was born the "flying Kalashnikov"
Any weapon, be it a knife, a machine gun, a tank, or an airplane, best of all reveals its capabilities only in combat - in fact, it is actually done. But these opportunities are laid out outside the battlefield, in the silence of the design offices and the roar of experimental production. And the material, the basis on which they arise, is the experience of all previous generations of the same weapon. The main thing is for designers to have enough genius to comprehend and filter them, isolating the most successful and rejecting erroneous decisions.
All these abstract arguments become more than specific if it comes to the history of the emergence of the MiG-21. Work on it began in the Mikoyan Design Bureau at the very beginning of the Korean War, in 1953. By this time, second-generation jet fighters — subsonic MiG-15 and MiG-17 — were mastered in Soviet aviation with might and main, and MiG-19 was on the way. All of them had a swept wing, which, as the designers, pilots, and the country's leadership had already seen, made it possible to increase the flight speed and maneuverability. It was this wing that the first prototype of the future fighter, the E-2, received. A little later, when it was possible to bring to the receipt of practical results of research on the capabilities and characteristics of the delta wing, which gave clear advantages in speed and maneuverability, the second prototype, E-4, was born.
This aircraft first flew 16 July 1955 of the year. And almost six months later, on January 9 of 1956, the prototype of the E-5 rushed into the sky - that was already almost the same as the MiG-21 silhouette, which was well known to military pilots of the whole world. Actually, this particular aircraft soon successfully passed the flight tests of the factory and by the decision of the USSR Council of Ministers on 11 June 1956 was introduced into a small series (10 machines) at the plant №31 in Tbilisi called MiG-21.
But these first ten machines were in fact an experimental batch, the aircraft of which were mainly used to carry out an extensive program of further research on the new scheme with a delta wing. And these studies initially yielded such results that the military began to glance not towards the Mikoyan MiG-21, but towards the Su-7 Sukhoi Design Bureau, which showed great speed, although less maneuverability. The situation was decided by the installation on the MiG-21 of the new engine - the forced P-11-300, which immediately improved almost all the flight characteristics of the new fighter. This machine received the MiG-24F index in the resolution of the USSR Council of Ministers on 1958 July 21 (forced, although an erroneous interpretation of this letter as “front-line” is often found), and its release was organized at the aircraft plant No. XXUMX in Gorky. These machines in 21-m came to the state tests. So the first modification of the “twenty-first”, adopted for service, should be considered the MiG-1959F.
Big family MiG-21
What was the front-line fighter MiG-21F, adopted at the end of 1959, the year? It was an ascetic-looking aircraft with a length of 13,5 meters and a height of 4,7 meters with a wingspan of almost twice the height. It was armed with two 30 caliber mm guns and two suspension containers with C-5 unguided rockets. The only pilot who controlled the aircraft was the one who, by the way, had to take one hand off the control knob to switch weapons use modes, which at times had a catastrophic effect on the outcome of the air combat.
Cab MiG-21. Photo: Petr Kadlec / wikipedia.org
MiG-21F could rise to an altitude of 19 km and rush there at a speed above 2100 km / h. It was less fast at the ground: just 1100 km / h. At the same time, the practical range of the fighter intended for use directly in the front line was small - only 1500 km. But MiG-21F had a very low weight: normal take-off weight - 6,9 tons, fuel weight - 1,8 tons. For comparison: the maximum take-off mass of the Phantom F-4B, which the MiG-21 first encountered in Vietnam, reached 20,2 tons, and the empty plane weighed 12,7 tons!
Following the MiG-21F, there appeared a much more massive MiG-21F-13, which differed from its predecessor primarily in the new type of weapons: guided missiles with K-13 thermal homing heads (hence the 13 figures in the model index). This was the first generation of the legendary aircraft.
In the second, such modifications appeared as the all-weather interceptor MiG-21P (F, FS) that lost the gun, the export version for India MiG-21FL, the modification MiG-21PFM, to which the gun was returned in the suspended gondola, and reconnaissance aircraft MiG-21Р . All these modifications have already been equipped with radars and command-guidance equipment.
The third generation was such modifications as the MiG-21С with a new radar station and four missiles - with a thermal and radar homing head. It was followed by an export version of the MiG-21M, equipped with a more powerful MiG-21CM engine, and its export version of the MiG-21MF. Finally, the most advanced modification of the third generation, the MiG-1971CMT, appeared on 21, exported under the symbol MiG-21MT.
The fourth and last generation of the “twenty first” was the modification of the MiG-21bis - the most perfect and most powerful machine, which had the perfect balance of flight and weight and size characteristics. And in 1994, on the basis of this model, the latest, most modern version of the MiG-21-93 was developed. In it, 120 and the Indian Twenty-First are turned into 2019, who are expected to reach the XNUMX year.
Veteran remaining in the ranks
Behind the shoulders of the front-line fighter MiG-21 is service in the military air forces of the 48 countries of the world, which represents an absolute record for combat jet aircraft. He has combat participation in all major local conflicts and wars, beginning with Vietnam and ending with the Desert Storm operation, including the Doomsday War, endless wars in Afghanistan, conflicts between parts of the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and numerous wars in Africa. In a word, this is a real veteran who has repeatedly proved in practice his military skills.
... And in the National Museum of Aviation and Cosmonautics in Washington, the MiG-21 was not accidental. American experts, like their numerous colleagues from other Western countries, have long sincerely recognized this fighter as one of the most successful combat aircraft in the world. It was not by chance that this car turned out to be in the museum, and it is not by chance that it stands next to the Phantom. The best evidence of recognition that the creators of the legendary “twenty-first” received abroad cannot be found. Unless to count, how many the same planes costs in set of other aviation museums worldwide. Which is not surprising: like the Kalashnikov assault rifle, the MiG-21 became a symbol of a weapon that is capable of solving any tasks and in any conditions - only skilled hands and cold heads would be found. Then, six decades after the first flight, the plane will continue to carry out effective combat service.
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