The Mig-21 was originally built by the Mikoyan and Gurevich Design Bureau in the
Soviet Union with a NATO nickname Fishbed. No other jet has had as many planes
produced as the Mig-21. Depending on the reference source 3,000 - 8,000 planes of all
versions were made in the Soviet Union, under license to allied countries and China
without license. At the time of its introduction into the Soviet Air Force service in 1959, it
was exactly what they wanted. A small, fast, agile, dependable and most importantly
simple making it easy to turn out great numbers of the plane. The skies of Eastern
Europe, Africa, Asia and Central America seemed to be filled with thousands of the Mig-
21. Because of its relatively low cost since it was heavily subsidized by the Soviets, it
became the plane of choice for many third world countries. Taking this into account this
plane has seen more wars then any other modern day jet. The Mig-21 was used in front
line service for over 30 years equaling that of the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II.
There were 5 generations of the plane in many versions and each generation brought
with it great improvements over its predecessors. There are/were some 21 countries that
flew the Mig-21.

During the 1980s and 90s Jagdfliegerschwader 3 (JG-3) was based at Preschen, East
Germany. JG-3 was equipped with MiG-21UM and MiG-21UBs for training as well as
MiG-29 and MiG-21MFs. One of their MiG-21MFs was Red “687” and is now on display
at the Deutches Museum Flugwerft in Oberschleissheim. Over time and by the 1990
reunification of East and West Germany JG-3 had received 251 MiG-21s in 7 variants.
JG-3 flew the MiG-21MF from 1972 until 1990 when at that time they had 68 MiG-21MFs.

Mig-21MF Specs:

Power Plant:
One 41.55kN (9,340lb st) or 64.73kN (14,550lb st) with afterburner Tumansky R-13-300
turbojet

Dimensions
Wingspan: 7.15m (23ft 5½in)
Length: 15.76m (51ft 8½in) - including Pitot boom
Max T-O weight: 9,400kg (20,725lb)

Performance
Max speed: Mach 2.1 (2,230km/h - 1,385mph) above 11,000m (36,000ft) Mach 1.06
(1,300km/h - 807mph) at low level
Range: 1,100km (683 miles) - internal fuel only 1,800km (1,118 miles) - with three
external drop tanks, one under fuselage, one under each wing

Armament
One 23mm twin-barrel GSh-23 cannon with 200 rounds in belly pack
Various air-to-air and air-to-ground stores carried on four under wing pylons including:
K-13A "Atoll" or "Advanced Atoll" a-a missiles,
UV-16-57 rocket packs,
S-24 a-s rockets,
250kg and 500kg bombs
1 X centre line drop tank.

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