Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15

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Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15
Image:MiG-15 RB1.jpg
Single-seat version in the markings of the Polish Air Force
Type	Fighter
Manufacturer	Mikoyan-Gurevich
Maiden flight	30th December 1947
Introduced	1949-50
Primary user	Image:Flag of the Soviet Union.svg Soviet Air Force
Number built	12,000+

The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 (Russian: Микоян и Гуревич МиГ-15) (NATO reporting name "Fagot") was a jet fighter developed for the USSR by Artem Mikoyan and Mikhail Gurevich. The MiG-15 was one of the first successful swept-wing jet fighters, and it achieved fame in the skies over Korea, where it outclassed all enemy fighters except the F-86 Sabre. The MiG-15 also served as the starting point for development of the more advanced MiG-17 which would oppose American fighters over Vietnam in 1960s. The MiG-15 is believed to have been the most numerous jet aircraft ever made, with over 12,000 built (and licensed foreign production perhaps raising this to over 18,000).^{[citation needed]}

1 History
2 Operational service
3 Production
4 Versions
5 Users
6 Specifications (MiG-15bis)
7 See also
8 References
9 External links
10 Related content

[edit] History

Image:MiG-15 RB2.jpg

Most early jets, especially those of the Western powers, were designed like piston-engined fighters with straight wings, and had only slightly better performance. German research during World War II had showed that swept wings would perform better at transonic speeds, and Soviet aircraft designers were not slow to take advantage of this information. However, claims that the successful Soviet piston-engined fighter designers Artem Mikoyan and Mikhail Gurevich (the lead designers of the "MiG" bureau) were heavily influenced by the Focke-Wulf Ta-183 have been discredited. Although the abortive late-war German jet had swept wings and bore an superficial resemblance to the later MiG-15, the two aircraft are very different in structure and general design. Although the Soviets did seize plans for the Ta-183, most Focke-Wulf engineers were captured by Western armies. Currently, most sources acknowledge that the MiG-15 is an original design and that Western aircraft industries benefited from German aerodynamic research just as much as Soviets.(See Gordon, Yefim, Mikoyan-Gurevich MIG-15: The Soviet Union's Long-Lived Korean War Fighter, Midland Press (2001))

By 1946, Soviet designers were finding it impossible to perfect the German-designed HeS-011 axial-flow jet engine, and new airframe designs from Mikoyan were threatening to outstrip development of the jet engines needed to power them. Soviet aviation minister Mikhail Khrunichev and aircraft designer Alexander Sergeyevich Yakovlev suggested to Joseph Stalin that the USSR buy advanced jet engines from the British. Stalin is said to have replied: "What fool will sell us his secrets?"^{[citation needed]} However, he gave his assent to the proposal, and Artem Mikoyan, engine designer Vladimir Klimov, and others traveled to the United Kingdom to request the engines. To Stalin's amazement, the British Labour government and its pro-Soviet Minister of Trade, Sir Stafford Cripps, were perfectly willing to provide technical information and even a licence to manufacture the Rolls-Royce Nene centrifugal-flow jet engine. This engine was reverse-engineered and produced in modified form as the Soviet Klimov VK-1 jet engine, which later incorporated into the MiG-15.^{[citation needed]} (Rolls-Royce later attempted to claim £207 million in license fees, but without success.)^{[citation needed]}

In the interim, on April 15 1947, the Council of Ministers issued decree #493-192, which ordered the Mikoyan OKB to build two prototypes for a new jet fighter. As the decree called for first flight as soon as December of that same year, the designers at OKB-155 fell back on an earlier troublesome design, the MiG-9. The MiG-9 suffered from an unreliable engine and control problems; the first would be solved by the excellent new Klimov engine, and to solve the second, the designers began experimenting with swept wings and also redesigned the tail unit. The resulting prototypes were designated I-310.

The I-310 was a clean, swept-wing fighter with wings and tail swept at a 35° angle. Although it possessed a number of dangerous handling eccentricities (some of which were never really resolved), including pitch-up at transsonic speeds, it had exceptional performance, with a top speed of over 650 mph (1,040 km/h). The I-310's primary competitor was the similar Lavochkin La-168. After evaluations, the MiG design was chosen for production. Designated MiG-15, the first production example flew on 31 December 1948. It entered Soviet Air Force service in 1949, and would subsequently receive the NATO reporting name "Fagot". An improved variant, the MiG-15bis ("bis" being Latin for "twice"), entered service in early 1950, with a number of changes intended to mitigate the aircraft's handling flaws.

The MiG-15 arguably had sufficient power to fly at supersonic speeds, but could not do so because it did not feature an "all-flying" tail. As a result, the pilot's ability to control the aircraft deteriorated significantly as Mach 1 was approached. Later MiGs would incorporate all-flying tails.

The MiG-15 was originally intended to intercept American bombers like the B-29, and was even evaluated in mock air-to-air combat trials with interned ex-U.S. B-29 bombers as well as the later Soviet B-29 copy, the Tupolev Tu-4. To ensure the destruction of such large bombers, the MiG-15 carried heavy cannon armament: two 23 mm cannon with 80 rounds per gun and a single massive 37 mm cannon with 40 rounds. These weapons provided tremendous punch in the interceptor role, but their limited rate of fire and relatively low velocity made it more difficult to score hits against small and maneuverable enemy jet fighter aircraft in air-to-air combat. The 23 mm and 37 mm cannon also had radically different ballistic characteristics, and some United Nations pilots during the Korean War had the unnerving experience of having 23 mm shells pass over them while the 37 mm shells flew under them. An advantage of this armament was that the MiG-15bis and later versions carried the guns in a detachable under-nose pack which would be lowered with a crank and reloaded in as little as 15 minutes, enabling rapid turnaround times.

A variety of MiG-15 variants were built, but the most common was the MiG-15UTI (NATO reporting name "Midget") two-seat trainer. Because Mikoyan-Gurevich never mass-produced the transition training versions of the later MiG-17 or MiG-19, the 'Midget' remained the sole Warsaw Pact advanced jet trainer well into the 1970s, the primary training role being fulfilled exclusively by Czechoslovak Aero L-29 Delfin (NATO: 'Maya') and the L-39 Albatros jet trainers (save for Poland, which used their indigenous TS-11 Iskra jets). While China produced two-seat trainer versions of the later MiG-17 and MiG-19, the Soviets felt that the MiG-15UTI was sufficient for their needs and did not produce their own trainer versions of those aircraft.

[edit] Operational service

The MiG-15 was widely exported, with the People's Republic of China receiving MiG-15bis models in 1950. Chinese MiG-15s took part in the first jet-versus-jet dogfights after communist North Korea's invasion of South Korea. The swept-wing MiG-15 quickly proved superior to the first-generation, straight-wing jets of the United Nations air forces, such as the F-80 and Gloster Meteor, as well as piston-engined F-51 Mustangs and F4U Corsairs. Only the F-86 Sabre with its highly trained crews would be able to consistently defeat it in air combat.

The F-86 was America's first swept-wing fighter and was introduced in December 1950. It essentially added new wings to the U.S. Navy's FJ-1 Fury. Although the Sabre could not match the MiG-15 in some performance parameters, superior tactics and pilot training allowed Sabre pilots to achieve high kill ratios against Chinese and North Korean pilots, while not being as successful against the better trained and experienced Soviets pilots.^{[citation needed]} Eager to obtain an intact MiG for testing, the United States offered a reward of US$100,000 and political asylum to any pilot who would defect with his airplane.^{[citation needed]} Eventually a North Korean pilot, Lieutenant No Kum-Sok, who claimed to be unaware of the proferred reward, landed at Kimpo Air Base in September 1953, allowing the first detailed evaluation of the aircraft. This MiG-15 was minutely inspected and was test-flown by the renowned test pilot Chuck Yeager (after replacing the Soviet-built ejection seat with an American one). Yeager is said to have reported that the MiG-15 was extremely dangerous to fly in a dive and found Soviet pilots in agreement.^{[citation needed]} The plane reportedly did not have enough control authority to exit a well-established spin. Soviet pilots were told to try the usual spin-recovery maneuvers for three full spins, then give up and eject.^{[citation needed]} This aircraft is now on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force near Dayton, Ohio.

The MiG-15 would see further combat after the Korean War. Shortly after the armistice, North Korean MiG-15s were shot down by F-86s of the USAF's 67th Fighter Bomber Squadron.^{[citation needed]} Throughout the 1950s, Soviet and Warsaw Pact MiG-15s intercepted USAF reconnaissance aircraft, shooting down several.^{[citation needed]} MiG-15s of China's People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) frequently engaged Republic of China (ROC) and U.S. aircraft in combat, and in 1958 an ROC fighter achieved the first air-to-air kill with an AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missile against a PLAAF MiG-15.^{[citation needed]} The MiG-15 also served with the Arab air forces during the 1956 Suez Canal Crisis and the 1967 Six-Day War.

The MiG-15 achieved its own first air-to-air kill on 13 June 1952, but it remained a secret for many years. Its victim was a Swedish Air Force DC-3 signals reconnaissance aircraft flying over the Baltic Sea, which set off what has become known as the Catalina affair (after the shooting down of a Catalina flying boat sent out to search for the missing DC-3).^{[citation needed]}

The famous Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin died during a March 1968 training flight in a MiG-15UTI. Due to poor visibility and miscommunication with ground control, the plane flew into the ground.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Production

Image:Krzesiny 18RB.JPG

The USSR built around 12,000 MiG-15s in all variants. It was also built under license in Czechoslovakia (as the S-102 and S-103) and Poland (as the Lim-1 and Lim-2 and biplace SB Lim-1 and SB Lim-2).

In the early 1950s, the Soviet Union delivered hundreds of MiG-15s to China, where they received the designation "J-2". The Soviets also sent almost a thousand MiG-15 engineers and specialists to China, where they assisted China's Shenyang Airfact Factory in building the MiG-15UTI trainer (designated "JJ-2"). China never produced a single-seat fighter version of the J-2/MiG-15, only the two-seat trainer JJ-2/MiG-15UTI variant. [1]

There's a dispute over exactly what is the "J-4". Some sources claim that Western observers mistakenly labelled China's MiG-15bis as the "J-4", while the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) never used the "J-4" designation. Others claim that "J-4" is used for MiG-17F, while "J-5" is used for MiG-17PF [2]. Another source claims the PLAAF used "J-4" for Soviet-built MiG-17A, which were quickly replaced by license-built MiG-17F / Shenyang J-5/J-5. [3] What is certain is that the service lives of the J-2 and J-4 in the PLAAF were short, as they were quickly replaced by the more capable J-5 and J-6.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Versions

Image:MIG-15UTI-hatzerim-2.jpg

I-310 : Prototype.
MiG-15 : Single-seat jet fighter. The first production version.
MiG-15P : Single-seat all-weather interceptor version of the MiG-15bis.
MiG-15SB : Single-seat fighter bomber version.
MiG-15SP-5 : Two-seat all-weather interceptor version of the MiG-15UTI.
MiG-15T : Target-towing version.
MiG-15bis : Improved single-seat fighter version.
MiG-15bisR : Single-seat reconnaissance version.
MiG-15bisS : Single-seat escort fighter version.
MiG-15bisT : Single-seat target-towing version.
MiG-15UTI : Two-seat dual-control jet trainer.
J-2 : Chinese designation of the MiG-15 single-seat fighter.
JJ-2 : Chinese designation of the MiG-15UTI two-seat jet trainer.
Lim-1 : MiG-15 jet fighters built under licence in Poland.
Lim-1A : Polish-built reconnaissance version of the MiG-15 with AFA-21 camera.
Lim-2 : MiG-15bis built under licence in Poland.
Lim-2R : Polish-built ground attack-reconnaissance version of MiG-15bis with place for camera in the front part of the canopy.
Lim-2A : Polish-built biplace ground attack-reconnaissance version.
SB Lim-1 : MiG-15UTI jet trainers built under licence in Poland with RD-45 jet engines.
SB Lim-2 : MiG-15UTI jet trainers built under licence in Poland with VK-1 jet engines.
S-102 : MiG-15 jet fighters built under licence in Czechoslovakia.
S-103 : MiG-15bis jet fighters built under licence in Czechoslovakia.

[edit] Users

[edit] Former Operators (Fighters and Trainers)

Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Angola, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, China, Congo, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Egypt, Finland (MiG-15UTI), Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Hungary, Indonesia, Iraq, Libya, Madagascar, Mali, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Nigeria, North Korea, North Vietnam, North Yemen, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Somalia, South Yemen, Soviet Union, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam, Yemen.

[edit] Current Operators (Trainers)

Image:Mig-15 operators.PNG China, North Korea.

[edit] United States Service

In the 1980s, the United States purchased a number of Shenyang J-4 along with Shenyang J-5 from China via the Combat Core Certification Professionals Company; these aircraft were employed in a "mobile threat test" program at Kirtland Air Force Base, operated by the 4477th "Red Hats" Test and Evaluation Squadron of the United States Air Force.