The first production Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 (SV), No. 101003. (Mikoyan Design Bureau)
31 December 1948: One year and one day after the first flight of the MiG I-310 S01 prototype, the first production Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15, serial number 101003, made its first flight. The production aircraft were based on the third I-310 prototype, S03. No. 101003 was designated МиГ-15(CB) (MiG-15 SV), and was retained by Mikoyan OKB for testing.
The MiG-15 is a single-seat, single-engine turbojet-powered fighter interceptor, designed to attack heavy bombers. Designed for high-subsonic speed, the wings were swept aft to 35° at 25% chord and had 2° anhedral. The wings were very thin to minimize aerodynamic drag and used “fences” to control air flow. The horizontal stabilizer was swept 40°, and the vertical fin, 55.7°.
Rolls-Royce Nene Mk.I and Mk.II turbojet engines had been used in the three I-310 prototypes. The British engine was reverse-engineered by Vladimir Yakovlevich Klimov and manufactured at Factory No. 45 in Moscow as the RD-45F. The engine produced a maximum 22.26 kilonewtons of thrust (5,004 pounds of thrust). It was improved and designated VK-1. Most MiG-15s used this engine.
The production fighter was 10.10 meters (33 feet, 2 inches) long, with a wingspan of 10.08 meters (33 feet, 1 inch) and height of 3.17 meters (10 feet, 5 inches). The total wing area was 20.60 square meters (222 square feet). The interceptor’s empty weight was 3,247 kilograms (7,158 pounds), and its takeoff weight was 4,917 kilograms (10,840 pounds).
The MiG-15 had a cruise speed 974 kilometers per hour (605 miles per hour, 0.79 Mach). Its maximum speed was 1,047 kilometers per hour (565 knots, or 651 miles per hour)—0.99 Mach—at low altitude, and 1,031 kilometers per hour (557 knots, 641 miles per hour, 0.97 Mach) at 5,000 meters (16,404 feet). The maximum rate of climb was 2,520 meters per minute (8,268 feet per minute), and its service ceiling was 15,100 meters (49,541 feet). The fighter had a practical range of 1,335 kilometers (830 miles).
Armament consisted of one Nudelman NS-37 37 mm cannon with 40 rounds of ammunition, and two Nudelman-Rikhter NR-23 23 mm cannon with 80 rounds per gun.
The first MiG 15, 101003, was built at Factory No. 1. Full scale production was considered so important that four other aircraft types were discontinued so that their factories could be used to build MiG-15s. They were also license-built in Poland and Czechoslovakia. More than 18,000 MiG-15s have been built. It has served in the air forces of at least 44 countries.
The MiG-15 soon entered combat in the Korean War. It scored its first air-to-air victory, 1 November 1950, when First Lieutenant Fiodor V. Chizh shot down a U.S. Air Force F-51 Mustang.
Soviet technicians service a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15bis of the 351st Fighter Aviation Regiment at Antung Air Base, China, mid-1952. (Unattributed)
31 October 1959: At Joukovski-Petrovskoe, U.S.S.R., Гео́ргий Константи́нович Мосоло́в (Georgy Konstantinovich Mosolov), chief test pilot for Mikoyan-Gurevich, flew a prototype of the MiG-21 interceptor identified as the E-66, to set a Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) World Record for Speed Over a 15-to-25 Kilometer Straight Course. His speed averaged 2,388 kilometers per hour (1,483.8 miles per hour).¹
The МиГ-21 prototype identified by the symbol E-66 is known at the Mikoyan Design Bureau as the E-6\3. Its first flight took place in December 1958. It is powered by a Tumansky 11F-300 afterburning turbojet engine. (A Wikipedia article suggests that this airplane was rebuilt to different configurations several times, with designations changed accordingly.)
Mosolov’s FAI altitude record of 28 April 1961 was also flown in a MiG-21 prototype called E-66. (FAI Record File # 8661) Photographs and motion picture film of that airplane show it marked with red numerals “31” on the forward fuselage.
The airplane in this photograph from the web site “Wings of Russia” is described as showing the Mikoyan-Gurevich E-6T\1 prototype, “31 Red,” flown to a world record altitude by Colonel Mosolov, 28 April 1961.
Colonel Mosolov was interviewed for an article in Air & Space Smithsonian Magazine. He told writer Tony Reichhardt that after completing the speed record course, he was 125 miles (201 kilometers) from base at 44,000 feet (13,411 meters). Low on fuel, he shut down the turbojet engine and began a long glide. He twice unsuccessfully attempted to restart the engine for the landing, but was forced to glide all the way to the runway. After landing, the fuel system was drained. Only 8 liters (2.1 gallons) remained.
Colonel Georgy Konstantinovich Mosolov, Soviet Air Forces. Hero of the Soviet Union.
Georgy Konstantinovich Mosolov was born 3 May 1926 at Ufa, Bashkortostan, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. He was educated at the Central Aviation Club, where he graduated in 1943, and then went to the Special Air Forces School. In 1945 he completed the Primary Pilot School and was an instructor at the Chuguev Military Aviation School (Kharkiv, Ukraine). In 1953 Mosolov was sent to the Ministry of Industrial Aviation Test Pilot School at Ramenskoye Airport, southeast of Moscow, and 6 years later, to the Moscow Aviation Institute. He was a test pilot at the Mikoyan Experimental Design Bureau from 1953 to 1959, when he became the chief test pilot.
Georgy Mosolov set six world speed and altitude records. He was named a Hero of the Soviet Union, 5 October 1960.
On 11 September 1962, an aircraft that Colonel Mosolov was flying suffered a catastrophic compressor failure at Mach 2.15 and began to break apart. Severely injured, Mosolov ejected from the doomed airplane at Mach 1.78. He survived but his test flying career was over. His recovery took more than a year, and though he was able to fly again, he could not resume his duties as a test pilot.
This Mikoyan-Gurevich E-152A, NATO code name “Flipper,” is one of the many MiG-21 prototypes flown by Georgy Mosolov.
The first prototype Mikoyan MiG 29A, 9-01, (“01 Blue”) on display at the Central Air Force Museum, Monino. (Detail from image by AVIA BavARia/Wikipedia)Alexander Vasilievich Fedotov
6 October 1977: The first of eleven prototypes of the Mikoyan MiG 29A fighter, 9-01, made its first flight at Ramenskoye Airfield with Chief Test Pilot Alexander Vasilievich Fedotov, Hero of the Soviet Union, in the cockpit.
Fedotov had been a test pilot at A.I. Mikoyan EDB since 1958 and set eighteen speed and altitude world records flying high performance aircraft. He was killed while testing the MiG 31 in 1984.
The MiG 29A is a fourth generation, single-seat, twin-engine, Mach 2+ air superiority fighter built by the Mikoyan Design Bureau. It entered service with the Soviet Union in 1983 and has been widely exported to many other nations. The MiG 29A is 13.37 meters (57 feet) long and has a wing span of 11.4 meters (37 feet, 3 inches). Its empty weight is 11,000 kilograms (24,250 pounds) and the maximum takeoff weight (MTOW) is 20,000 kilograms (44,100 pounds). The fighter is powered by two Klimov RD-33 turbofan engines which produce 11,240 pounds of thrust, or 18,277 pounds of thrust with afterburner. It has a maximum speed of Mach 2.25 (1,490 miles per hour/2,400 kilometers per hour) and a service ceiling of 59,100 feet (18,013 meters). Maximum range with internal fuel is 1,430 kilometers (888 miles).
Armament consists of one Gryazev-Shipunov GSh-301 30mm autocannon with 150 rounds of ammunition and a combination of air-to-air missiles, rockets or bombs carried on underwing pylons or fuselage hard points.
Alexander Vasilievich Fedotov born 23 June 1932 at Stalingrad, Russia (renamed Volgograd in 1961). He graduated from the Air Force Special School at Stalingrad, and in 1950, entered the Soviet Army. Fedotov attended the Armavir Military Aviation School of Pilots at Amravir, Krasnodar Krai, Russia, graduating in 1952, and then became a flight instructor. In 1958 he attended the Ministry of Indutrial Aviation Test Pilot School at Zhukovsky. He was a test pilot for the Mikoyan Experimental Design Bureau from 1958 to 1984. In 1983, Alexander Fedotov was promoted to the rank of Major General in the Soviet Air Force.
On 22 July 1966, Fedotov was honored as a Hero of the Soviet Union. He was named an Honored Test Pilot of the Soviet Union, 21 February 1969. He was qualified as a Military Pilot 1st Class. Fedotov was twice awarded the order of Lenin, and also held the Order of the Red Banner and the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.
During his career as a test pilot, Major General Fedotov had been forced to eject from an airplane three times. He had also set 15 Fédération Aéronautique Internationale world records for speed, altitude and time to altitude. One of these, FAI Record File Number 2825, in which he flew a Mikoyan E-266M to 37,650 meters (123,534 feet), 31 August 1977, remains the current record. The FAI has also honored him three times (1961, 1973 and 1977) with The De la Vaulx Medal, and in 1976 awarded him the FAI’s Gold Air Medal.
Major General Alexander Vasilyevich Fedotov and his navigator, Valerie Sergeyvich Zaytevym, were killed when the second MiG 31 prototype, number 83/2, crashed during a test flight. Neither airman was able to eject.
Major General Alexander Vasilyevich Federov, Hero of the Soviet Union
Mikoyan-Gurevich Ye-50/3 (Mikoyan Design Bureau via The Corner of the Sky)Nikolay Arkadevich Korovin
8 August 1957: At Ramenskoye Airfield, Moscow, Russia, senior test pilot Lieutenant Colonel Nikolay Arkadevich Korovin (Коровин Николай Аркадьевич) was scheduled to take an experimental prototype interceptor to an altitude of 20,000 meters (65,617 feet).
The airplane was the Mikoyan-Gurevich Ye-50/3 (also known as the E-50/3). It was powered by an afterburning turbojet engine and a liquid-fueled rocket engine. This was the third prototype of the series.
The three Ye-50 prototypes were variants of the MiG 21. They were developed from the earlier MiG Ye-2, with a rocket engine installed. This was not merely a booster engine, but the aircraft carried sufficient fuel for as much as 20 minutes of rocket-assisted flight. A planned production interceptor, the Ye-50A, was designated MiG 23U. Only one of these was built.
Mikoyan-Gurevich Ye-50/3 (Mikoyan Design Bureau via The Corner of the Sky)
The Ye-50/3 differed from Ye-50/2 with an increased fuel capacity and extended air intake with sharp leading edge. The Ye-50/3 was 4.85 meters (48.72 feet) long with a wingspan of 8.11 meters (21.61 feet). The aircraft had an empty weight of 5,920 kilograms (13,051 pounds), and maximum takeoff weight of 8,500 kilograms (18,739 pounds).
The Ye-50/3 was powered by an A.A. Mikulin AM-9E afterburning turbojet engine rated at 3,800 kilograms force ( pounds thrust) and a liquid-fueled Dushkin S-155 rocket engine. The S-155 used a hypergolic mixture of nitric acid and kerosene as fuel. It produced 1,300 kgf (2,866 pounds of thrust).
Mikoyan-Gurevich Ye-50/3 (Mikoyan Design Bureau via The Corner of the Sky)
The Ye-50/3 had been completed in April 1957. Prior to 8 August, Ye-50/3 had made 10 test flights, 6 of which successfully used the rocket engine. It had a maximum speed of 2,460 kilometers per hour (1,529 miles per hour), or Mach 2.33. The service ceiling was 23,000 meters (75,460 feet. Its range was 475 kilometers (295 miles).
The Ye-50/3 was the only one of the three prototypes to be armed. It carried two Nudelman-Rikhter NR-30 30 mm autocannon.
Mikoyan-Gurevich Ye-50/3 (Mikoyan Design Bureau via The Corner of the Sky)
Ramenskoye Airfield was very busy that day. Colonel Korovin’s launch was delayed by traffic on the runway. Finally, he took of at 12:50 p.m. and accelerated into a climb.
At 1:01 p.m., Colonel Korovin radioed that the aircraft was in a spin. 30 seconds later, he called that he was ejecting.
The Ye-50/3 crashed near the village of Radovitsy, approximately 100 kilometers (62 miles) southeast of Ramenskoye. The body of Colonel Korovin was located about 150 meters (164 yards) from the crash site, still in his ejection seat. The parachute had not opened, and the test pilot had been killed on impact.
The accident investigation found that during the delay to takeoff, the liquid oxidizer accumulated in the combustion chamber. This caught fire as the prototype took off. The rocket engine’s turbopump exploded. The explosion damaged the flight control system and the prototype caught fire. The fire burned away a portion of the airplane’s vertical fin. When it entered a spin, Colonel Korovin was unable to recover. It was found that he had removed his gloves and tried to manually pull the ejection seat parachute release cable, but to no avail.
On 9 September 1957, Lieutenant Colonel Korovin was posthumously named a Hero of the Soviet Union.
Cockpit of Mikoyan-Gurevich Ye-50/3. (Mikoyan Design Bureau via The Corner of the Sky)Коровин Николай Аркадьевич
Nikolay Arkadevich Korovin was born 7 May 1920 at the village of Galanovo in the Votsk Autonomous Oblast (now, the Udmurt Republic). His family were peasants who worked on a collective farm. Korovin completed six grades of formal education.
In 1938 Korovin joined the Red Army. He received further education at a military school in Perm, a city in Russia near the Ural Mountains, graduating in 1939. The following year, he completed pilot training at the Stalingrad Military Aviation School.
From 1941 through 1944, Korovin served as a pilot instructor at Chkalovskaya (now Orenburg, Kazakhstan). In March 1944, he was assigned to combat operations, first with the 91st Guards Aviation Regiment (Ground Attack), and then the 92nd Guards. He fought on the second Ukrainian Front, and in Hungary, Checkoslavakia and Austria. He flew 66 combat missions in the Ilyushin Il-2 Штурмовик (Šturmovík) during the Great Patriotic War.
The Ilyushin Il-2 Šturmovík was the most-produced aircraft of the Second World War. (NASM)
Korovin remained in the Soviet Air Force following the War. He graduated from a senior officers tactical school at Taganrog, Rostov Oblast, in 1950, and then, in 1951, became a senior test pilot for the State Red Banner Scientific-Testing Institute for the Air Force (GK NII VVS). In 1955, Korovin flew government tests of the MiG 19.
During his military career, Lieutenant Colonel Nikolay Arkadevich Korovin was awarded the Order of Lenin, Order of the Red Banner, Order of the Patriotic War 1st Degree, and Order of the Red Star (two awards). His remains were buried at the military cemetery at Chkalovskaya.
28 April 1961: Colonel Georgy Konstantinovich Mosolov, Hero of the Soviet Union, flew a prototype Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21F interceptor, the Ye-6T/1, 31 Red, to a Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) World Record for Altitude of 34,714 meters (113,891 feet).¹ This exceeded the record set five months earlier by Captain Joe B. Bailey, U.S. Air Force, with a Lockheed F-104C Starfighter, by 3,201 meters (10,502 feet).²
Mikoyan-Gurevich Ye-6T/1 prototype, “31 Red”. (Wings of Russia)
The Ye-6T/1 and Ye-6T/3 were converted from the first and third MiG-21F prototypes. These experimental airplanes were built to test various missiles, engines and canard/wing configurations.
Ye-6T/1 was powered by a Tumansky R-11F2-300 afterburning turbojet engine and carried a liquid-fueled Sevruk S3-20M5A rocket engine mounted under the fuselage. The rocket produced 29.42 kilonewtons (6,614 pounds of thrust) at Sea Level. The prototype carried sufficient rocket fuel for 100 seconds burn time.
Mosolov set two world speed records with the Ye-6T/1 on 31 October 1959, with a performance of 2,388.00 kilometers per hour over a straight 15/25 kilometer course,³ and a 100 kilometer closed course.⁴
Mikoyan-Gurevich Ye-6T, prototype MiG-21-F-13
Major General Vladimir Konstantinovich Kokkinai had also set a world speed record with 31 Red. On 16 September 1960, Kokkinaki flew the Ye-6T/1 to 2,148.66 kilometers per hour (1,335 miles per hour) around a 100 kilometer closed course.⁵
Ye-6T/1 and Ye-6T/3 became the prototypes for the MiG-21-F-13 short range supersonic interceptor (NATO designation: Fishbed-C)
A Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21-F-13, “63 Red,” at the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center
The Микоян и Гуревич МиГ-21-Ф-13 (Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21F-13) is a short-range supersonic interceptor with a “tailed-delta” configuration. The MiG-21-F-13 is 13.46 meters (44 feet, 1.9 inches) long, with a wingspan of 7.154 meters (23 feet, 5.7 inches), and height of 4.71 meters (15 feet, 5.4 inches). It has an empty weight of 4,871 kilograms (10,739 pounds), and a normal takeoff weight of 7,100 kilograms (15,653 pounds).
The MiG-21-F-13 was powered by a single Tumansky R-11F-300 engine. This is a dual-spool, axial-flow turbojet with afterburner. It has a 6-stage compressor section (3 low- and 3 high-pressure stages) and a 2-stage turbine (1 high- and 1 low-pressure stage). The R-11F-300 is rated at 8,600 pounds of thrust (38.26 kilonewtons), and 11,200 pounds (49.82 kilonewtons) with afterburner. It is 4.600 meters (15 feet, 1.1 inches) long, 0.907 meters (2 feet, 11.7 inches) in diameter, and weighs 1,124 kilograms (2,477 pounds).
The MiG-21-F-13 had a maximum speed of 1,200 kilometers per hour (746 miles per hour) at Sea Level, and 2,175 kilometers per hour (1,351 miles per hour) at high altitude. It could reach its service ceiling of 19,000 meters (62,334 feet) in just over 13 minutes. Its range is 1,300 kilometers (808 miles).
The -F-13 was armed with one Nudelman-Rikhter NR-30 30 mm autocannon with 30 rounds of ammunition, and two Vympel R-3S infrared-homing air-to-air missiles (NATO: AA-2A Atoll).
Colonel Georgy Konstantinovich Mosolov, Hero of the Soviet Union
Georgy Konstantinovich Mosolov was born 3 May 1926 at Ufa, Bashkortostan, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. He was educated at the Central Aviation Club, where he graduated in 1943, and then went to the Special Air Forces School. In 1945 he completed the Primary Pilot School and was assigned as an instructor at the Chuguev Military Aviation School at Kharkiv, Ukraine.
In 1953 Mosolov was sent to the Ministry of Industrial Aviation Test Pilot School at Ramenskoye Airport, southeast of Moscow, and 6 years later, to the Moscow Aviation Institute. He was a test pilot at the Mikoyan Experimental Design Bureau from 1953 to 1959, when he became the chief test pilot.
Georgy Mosolov set six world speed and altitude records. He was named a Hero of the Soviet Union, 5 October 1960, and Honored Test Pilot of the Soviet Union, 20 September 1967. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale awarded him its Henry De La Vaulx Medal three times: 1960, 1961 and 1962. The medal is presented to the holder of a recognized absolute world aviation record, set the previous year.
Mikoyan-Gurevich Ye-8/1, 81 Red. This is the airplane Mosolov flew on 11 September 1962. (Mikoyan)
On 11 September 1962, an experimental Mikoyan Ye-8 that Colonel Mosolov was flying suffered a catastrophic compressor failure at Mach 2.15. Engine fragments heavily damaged to prototype and it began to break apart. Severely injured, Mosolov ejected from the doomed airplane at Mach 1.78. He had suffered a severe head injury, two broken arms and a broken leg during the ejection and became entangled in the parachute’s shroud lines. His other leg was broken when he landed in a forest. The following day he suffered cardiac arrest. During a surgical procedure, he went in to cardiac arrest a second time.
Georgy Mosolov recovering in a hospital, 1962. (Мужская работа)
Mosolov survived but his test flying career was over. His recovery took more than a year, and though he was able to fly again, he could not resume his duties as a test pilot.
Georgy Mosolov served as an international representative for Aeroflot until 1992. He was also a department head at the Higher Komsomol School (Moscow University for the Humanities).
Mosolov was Chairman of the USSR Hockey Federation from 1969 to 1973. He was an Honored Master of Sports of the USSR.
Colonel Georgy Konstantinovich Mosolov, Soviet Air Forces, Hero of the Soviet Union, died 17 March 2018, at Moscow, Russia, at the age of 91 years. He was buried at the Vagankovsoye cemetery in Moscow.
