elticker said:
The MiG-21 design is based on tailed delta wing planform while the French Mirage was a tailless delta. The pure delta has many advantages in high-altitude, high-speed flight. It also has no clearly defined point of stall and develops max lift at very high angles of incidence. But it pays a high price in increased drag. Drag is also high while maneuvering.
The tailed delta avoided the worst drawbacks of the tailless variety.
Turning ability of the MiG-21 is good and at the lower speed levels it is very good. But increase speed to Mach 0.9 at 15,000-feet altitude and the MiG-21’s instantaneous turn rate becomes worse than that of the Phantom though still better than the Mirage 3C can achieve.
The controls are heavy, to a degree where a fair amount of muscle is needed. The pilot’s view out is not good, rear vision is almost non-existent and even the view ahead is restricted by both avionics displays and a heavy canopy bow. A fairly low fuel fraction reduces the combat radius without external fuel to a ridiculously short distance. The performance above 20,000 feet was described as poor.
The truth is that the MiG-21 is a very ordinary fighter and had it been of Western origin, it would have probably sunk without trace prior to 1970.
At the same time, the latest MiG-21bis (Fishbed-N) has a more powerful engine and a far superior thrust-to-weight ratio. Its performance has to improve dramatically and it must be a formidable dogfighter
i am sorry for misconfusing cause i though i read that the soviets refused to send advanced planes
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As far as I can tell, the Soviets sent whatever they could to test out how well it'd do against NATO weaponry, thus the 2K12 Cubs being deadly against the unknowning IAF.
Mig-21's really depend on their variant. Some countries have used them to deadly configurations like the Indian Air Force which is just now replacing them (much like the F4 which was fantastic, too). I don't know if Egypt had the bis configurations, but they did at least have the F-13 and PF configurations which were, at least, 2nd generation fighters which were pretty decent.
