Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 Fishbed
The MiG-21 Fishbed is a Soviet supersonic jet fighter designed by the Mikoyan-Gurevich bureau in the 1950s. A small, simple, Mach 2 tailed-delta interceptor, it was built in larger numbers than any warplane since the Second World War and exported to dozens of air forces, fighting in the Middle East, South Asia and Vietnam. Licensed production in India and Czechoslovakia, and China's F-7 version, spread it further still, and a few air forces fly it seventy years on.
Why It Mattered
The Smithsonian calls the MiG-21 the first Soviet jet fighter of the second generation to be truly modern in design, and it became the standard clear-air interceptor of the Soviet air forces. It was built in larger numbers than any warplane since the Second World War. Exported around the world, it was serving with at least 37 air forces by the mid-1980s, and around 60 countries have flown it in all. It fought in wars in the Middle East, in South Asia and over North Vietnam, usually against Western-built opponents. Few fighters have stayed in front-line service so long: seventy years after its first flight, a small number of air forces still fly it.
Design Notes
Mikoyan began design work in 1953, answering a Korean War requirement for a short-range interceptor and light strike fighter. The result paired a very thin delta wing with a conventional tail — a "tailed delta" — which gave the aircraft high speed and good medium-altitude performance. Air reached its single Tumansky turbojet through a nose intake, where a movable inlet cone regulated the flow at supersonic speeds. It was the first Soviet aircraft to reach Mach 2. The design was deliberately basic: a small, defensive fighter in traditional materials, kept simple so that it could be built fast, cheaply and in large numbers, and operated from rough fields with minimal support. The price of that simplicity, in the early versions, was short range, basic avionics, a poor view for the pilot and light armament. Radar, more powerful engines and better weapons were added as the type developed.
Operational History
Testing began in 1956, and the first production version, the MiG-21F-13, entered Soviet service in 1960. More than 6,000 MiG-21s of a dozen versions were flown by Soviet forces over the following thirty years. Production continued into the mid-1980s; one widely used count gives 11,496 built in the Soviet Union, India and Czechoslovakia combined, and China built its own version, the F-7. The type first fought with Arab air forces against Israel in the Six-Day War of June 1967, and again in the Yom Kippur War of October 1973. Israel claimed 245 air-to-air kills against MiG-21s over a sixteen-year period beginning in July 1966, though Israeli losses to the type are unknown. Indian MiG-21s fought Pakistan in December 1971, in the first encounter between the type and the American F-104. Over North Vietnam, American forces met the MiG-21 for years; the Smithsonian's account credits the Americans with establishing a kill advantage of 5.5 to 1. Over a thirty-year span, MiG-21 variants repeatedly clashed with American-built fighters — the F-4 Phantom among them — in Cold War conflicts around the world.
Afterlife
The last new MiG-21s were built in the mid-1980s, but the type's service outlasted the Soviet Union itself by decades. India, which had built the aircraft under licence in large numbers, retired its last MiG-21s from operational service on 26 September 2025, and a small number of air forces still fly it today. Many survivors are preserved in museums. The National Air and Space Museum's MiG-21F-13, transferred by the US Air Force in August 1990, is displayed at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia. The Museum of Flight's MiG-21 PFM, a former Czech aircraft found among dozens destined for the scrapyard, was purchased in 1994, shipped to Seattle and reassembled there.