Russia's Best Fighter Jet Ever Made - The Mig 21

brought to you by Squarespace in the night sky is flying high above the clouds a formation of B-52 bombers is closing in on their target but they're not alone major fam Twan in his mig-21 is being Guided by ground radar to try and get behind the American bombers and this was not the first time that he had tried the B-52s were now in his sight all he had to do was to get into range the minimum safe range to launch his k-13 missiles is eight kilometers but he knows he has to be a lot closer narrowing the distance down to five kilometers four three and the missiles are away [Music] an explosion Roars throughout the skies and he got his kill the first ever B-52 was shot down in air-to-air combat this was all thanks to the new fighter jet that had been delivered to the Vietnamese the mig-21 the mig-21 was one of the most successful Soviet aircraft ever built and this is the story of how it almost never got built the 50s brought about one of the greatest Evolutions in the history of Aviation the sound barrier was broken and and yeah systems could not keep up with the new jet engines that were being put onto these aircraft at the time the Soviets themselves were struggling to keep up against the new U.S spy planes bombers and Fighters so they decided to orient their development towards interceptors because of the Americans kept poking into their territories they might as well be able to catch up and take them out so to create these new Jets it came down to the classic rivalry Mig vs sohoi something that we'll see again and again during the Cold War and this competition was no different the mig-21 would go on to become one of the most prolific Russian jet aircraft used across the world but you don't need to be a superpower to get people to buy your jet aircraft not when you have Squarespace that's right and sell your jet or anything else with a Squarespace website they have plenty of great templates or you can have a go building your own design with their powerful code free Builder they have built-in e-commerce Tech so you can start selling right away inbuilt email campaign marketing tools that are very easy to use and their sites are already optimized for mobile phones so you don't have to make another one for people's devices plus when you click that link down below you're actually supporting the channel by helping fund the animations in the videos that you love so much so it's win-win to get this deal simply go to www.squarespace.com found and get 10 percent of your first sight and domain become a supporter of the channel and click that link when you need a website back to the show after a good performance of migs during the Korean war against U.S Jets the bureau was set to build a new fighter but with speed now is the priority two prototypes were created called the ye2 and the ye4 the ye or otherwise pronounced Yi standing for yet in itster or single unit in Russian which was the standard designation for prototypes although silver and design the year 2 had swept Wings well known and a study designed by that time which was optimized for supersonic speeds but not very good for subsonic or takeoff however the Yi 4 was a new design with Delta Wings instead these kinds of wings would allow for better maneuverability better lift and more fuel capacity keeping the Optimal Performance when going supersonic this initial design was actually similar to sahoy's design of the swept wing su-7 and delta wing suit 9. even the West at the time confused them when they first appeared after testing both prototypes in Flight it was an easy choice in the E4 became a base for what we know as the mig-21 today well kind of you see there was actually one little hiccup and it was because sahoi actually won the contract first the suit 9 entered Service as the new Soviet Interceptor but Mig wasn't going to lose this battle and tried a new approach changing its focus away from a fast Interceptor into a dogfighter Interceptor the new Thomas Sky r25 engine would give this jet enough power to go over Mach 2 and its design would allow it to be quite maneuverable in flight and go toe-to-toe with most American jets the first variant called the mig-21f entered service by 1959. it was armed only with two 30 millimeter guns because at air missiles at the time was something that the Soviets were heavily lagging behind the Americans however in a turn of events it would be the Americans who would actually help the Soviets develop their first air to air missile and make the mig-21 become the fighter we know it today during the Chinese Taiwanese war in 1958 the Taiwanese Sabers flew with the new aim-9 Sidewinders in a crazy coincidence one of the Chinese mig-17s got shot with an aim9 which didn't explode it was lodged into the fuselage and the Mig landed safely after proceeding the Chinese to give them the missile the Soviets very quickly reversed engineered it and the k-13 missile entered service in the words of one of the engineers The Sidewinder missile was to us a university offering a course in missile construction technology this would level the playing field and the mig-21 was soon to have its chance to prove its expectations in combat the Vietnam War was the largest conflict after World War II and it was used by both the US and the Soviets to test new weapons perfect the ones that were already in service and trained Personnel for the ultimate war that was brewing between the East and the West it's here or rather in the skies above it that air Warfare was once again revolutionized the mig-21 was the best the East could offer and would face up against a very formidable opponent the F4 Phantom the F4 was Superior in almost every way it was a multi-role aircraft equipped with radar both ir and radar-guarded missiles two engines and a higher Max Speed but the Mig was a fighter made for that role only and being very maneuverable with the right pilots and tactics it would prove to be extremely deadly Vietnamese Pilots trained in the USSR would adopt new tactics to take on the F4 instead of flying directly to intercept where they had no chance due to their radar having two times less the range and no medium range radar guided missiles like the aim sevens they would usually go around and try attacking enemy formations from the side or the rear if they got close enough to enter a dogfight then they would have the advantage you see the first variance of the F4 didn't even have a cannon it was thought that the future of air Warfare was just missiles but that wasn't correct at least for the moment if migs managed to go into a dogfight m4s would almost be sitting ducks after a long and unsuccessful campaign roaring Thunder which saw almost a thousand U.S aircraft being lost Americans were forced to completely redesign their air Warfare and strategy leading to the nsawc or the Top Gun school being created in the Navy and Air Force to start their own fighter School focusing on dog fighting to take on the mig-21 most of the Vietnamese Aces from the war flew blue on the mig-21 including the top Ace nugen van with nine victories and even today they fondly remember their time with this aircraft the mig-21 proved to be everything it was expected to be and its career was just getting started the fish bed saw a lot more combat during its career but its title was one of the best fighters in the sky started to slip around the Israel Arab Wars because it was quickly outclassed by the new f-16s and f-15s although some flown by top Soviet Pilots were still able to go toe-to-toe with the best of the Israelis during the iran-iraq war Iraqi mig-21s were accredited with almost 40 kills with the similar losses the mig-21 bis were probably the ultimate modernization of this aircraft which was widely spread with many countries adopting this aircraft as their jet fighter of choice overall more than 11 000 mig-21s were built either by the Soviets or by other Eastern Bloc countries making it the most produced supersonic aircraft in history and some 60 countries have used them at some point the story of the mig-21 lives up to this day and it's still in service over 60 years after its first flight in numerous countries and just like its Nemesis the F4 it is one of the most legendary aircraft ever built nowadays even two NATO countries still use the mig-21 namely Croatia and Romania but that is soon to change with them acquiring new and modern aircraft do let me know if you'd like to see more videos on jets that didn't just stay as paper projects or ended their career in a prototype phase or more videos focused on stories from certain conflicts and perspectives it's a new year here at Fountain explained and I'm very excited to see what other type of content that we can put together so thank you so much again for watching and vadanya

Channel: Found And Explained

Views: 908,407

Keywords: russia, mig, fighter jet, airforce, fighter jets, air force, russia ukraine, fighter jets in action

Id: sJ3delPX5QE

Length: 10min 29sec (629 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 05 2023