AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 64 / 81

Plate 64 of 81 · Cold War · Delta-wing supersonic interceptor

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21PF

MiG-21PF, painted as ‘503’, the RAF Museum’s Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21PF (c/n 760503), a radar-equipped all-weather interceptor flown by the Hungarian Air Force and later registered in Britain as G-BRAM, now on its wheels in the National Cold War Exhibition at RAF Museum Midlands, Cosford, with its Tumansky R-11F2-300 afterburning turbojet behind the nose intake and its radar shock cone, shown as it is displayed today: dark olive green and sand camouflage, laid out differently on each side, over light blue undersides, a sand band round the nose behind the bare-metal intake lip, a green shock cone with a red tip, a red ‘503’ edged in white on both sides of the nose, the Hungarian red star on the fin, a bare, heat-darkened tail end and brake-chute box, a ventral drop tank, two under-wing pylons with launch rails, the forward airbrakes open and the front-hinged canopy raised.

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as ‘503’, the RAF Museum’s Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21PF (c/n 760503), a radar-equipped all-weather interceptor flown by the Hungarian Air Force and later registered in Britain as G-BRAM, now on its wheels in the National Cold War Exhibition at RAF Museum Midlands, Cosford, with its Tumansky R-11F2-300 afterburning turbojet behind the nose intake and its radar shock cone, shown as it is displayed today: dark olive green and sand camouflage, laid out differently on each side, over light blue undersides, a sand band round the nose behind the bare-metal intake lip, a green shock cone with a red tip, a red ‘503’ edged in white on both sides of the nose, the Hungarian red star on the fin, a bare, heat-darkened tail end and brake-chute box, a ventral drop tank, two under-wing pylons with launch rails, the forward airbrakes open and the front-hinged canopy raised. Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (863 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (PF/SPS/PFM); engine, crew and dimensions are for the MiG-21PF modelled here.

History

The MiG-21PF

In the early 1950s the Mikoyan-Gurevich bureau set out to build a light, simple fighter that could climb fast and fly at twice the speed of sound. In 1955 it flew two families of prototypes side by side, one with a sharply swept wing and one with a tailed delta: a triangular wing with a separate swept tailplane behind it. The delta was lighter and stiffer and held more fuel, and it won. The Ye-5 prototype, the first to be called MiG-21, first flew in January 1956, and with the Tumansky R-11 engine and a round nose intake with a movable shock cone the type went into production as the MiG-21F and F-13 at the end of the 1950s.

The first MiG-21s were clear-weather fighters with a cannon and two heat-seeking missiles, guided onto their targets by radar controllers on the ground. The MiG-21PF of the early 1960s gave the pilot his own radar, the RP-21 Sapfir, in a larger shock cone; the nose was lengthened to take it, the intake was widened, the gun was deleted and a deeper spine behind the cockpit held more fuel. It also had the more powerful R-11F2-300 engine and moved the pitot boom from under the nose to the top. Later marks went on to blown flaps, a gun again, more fuel and more powerful engines, ending with the MiG-21bis of 1972.

More than 11,000 MiG-21s were built in the Soviet Union, and Czechoslovakia and India built it under licence, while China copied it as the J-7. It served with about sixty air forces, fought over Vietnam, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent, and a few are still flying. Hungary flew MiG-21s from 1961 until 2000. Three UK museums in the gazetteer hold one: MiG-21PFs at IWM Duxford and the RAF Museum at Cosford, and a MiG-21SPS at the Midland Air Museum.

This airframe

MiG-21PF “503”

503The airframe modelled

“503”, construction number 760503, was built as a MiG-21PF for the Hungarian Air Force, which took its numbers from the last digits of the construction number. When it left Hungarian service it came to Britain, where it was registered as G-BRAM, and it is now part of the RAF Museum’s collection, standing on its wheels in the National Cold War Exhibition at Cosford. The model shows it as photographed there between 2008 and 2020: dark olive green and sand camouflage, laid out differently on the two sides, over light blue undersides, a sand band round the nose behind the bare-metal intake lip, a green shock cone with a red tip, a red “503” edged in white on both sides of the nose, the Hungarian red star on the fin, a bare, heat-darkened tail end and brake-chute box, a ventral drop tank, two under-wing pylons with launch rails, the forward airbrakes open and the front-hinged canopy raised.

See it at Royal Air Force Museum Midlands

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the MiG-21PF in 3 UK collections. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 81 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.