Микоян - Гуревич, МиГ-21 [Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21] NATO Reporting Name FISHBED

Just call me Ray · January 25, 2009, 01:44:09 PM

Take out the cockpit and put in a warhead for a really big SAM, maybe something akin to a BOMARCski.

Sauragnmon · January 25, 2009, 02:35:21 PM

Rocket Fishbed - Ludicrous Speed, GO!

I'd also thought of a Fishbed ZELL - too hard to sell the concept?

I was thinking of legged floats, or else moving the speedbrake flaps up top and doing something like putting a float bottom on it and tip-floats on the wings.

Replacing the cockpit with a guidance package, putting in a pair of rocket boosters and then replacing the jet with a ramjet could also be pretty dang beefy.

Daryl J. · January 25, 2009, 05:09:13 PM

I've wanted to hook Su-7ish wings onto it much like the MiG-21 Faceplate (not Fishbed) prototype had and designate the machine for forward, high-speed ground attack.

For fun, have a look at the MiG-21 Analogue too. FSM Magazine had plans and a conversion of the Fujimi kit one issue a decade and a half ago.

Daryl J.

Sauragnmon · January 25, 2009, 08:02:27 PM

Oh I love the analogue, I do... I want to get my hands on the conversion kit, but it seems impossible to track down. I thought a 21-93/Analogue bash would be sweet - what if the Analogue had actually been turned into a production fighter as the test pilots wanted?

Daryl J. · January 25, 2009, 09:51:10 PM

The FSM conversion consisted of sheet styrene, a knife, sandpaper, MEK, and a soldier's helmet IIRC.

Yes indeedy, the Analogue is a sweet machine.

Daryl J.

dy031101 · February 11, 2009, 08:10:17 PM

Found a number of interesting pictures on my hard drive...... figured that I'll share them here.

A fan variant of the MiG-21, courtesy of Konami and their Airforce Delta Storm for the first XboX.

Sauragnmon · February 11, 2009, 09:30:36 PM

Damn, that is a sweet looking concept - it's like a MiG-21 Analogue with extra stabilizer fins on the deltas. Very cool though.

Daryl, if you can, got any ideas on where to find that article? I'm Very interested in the thought. Fishbeds are one of my favourite airframes.

Shasper · February 11, 2009, 09:41:04 PM

The ZELL idea wouldnt be too far out there . . . the russkies were launching unmanned MiG-19s out into the Kazak bush using a similar setup to what we were using in the States . . .

Now here's one for y'all, the old arii 144th miG-23 Flipper.

Shas

Wyrmshadow · February 12, 2009, 02:33:14 AM

That plane from Delta-Storm they called the Fish-bale.

Weaver · February 12, 2009, 06:39:02 AM

MiG did a study of a MiG-21 fuselage with Starfighter-style razor-blade wings and a T-tail, mostly, one suspects, to figure out what Lockheed saw in it. Funnily enough, one of the Lockheed studies that lead to the Starfighter had a nose intake and small canards. Given that MiG developed an interest in small canards too, they almost ended up drawing the same plane.....

My Avro Atom project has left me with a literally spineless MiG-21 fuselage. Given that "S" reporting names were for surface-to-surface missiles, it might well end up as an unmanned SS(C)-21 Spineless cruise missile, analogous to a Regulus or Matador, with a tiny wing and rocket-boosters.

Sauragnmon · February 12, 2009, 07:07:25 AM

If you do it as a SSM, it might be more to the tune of the AS-1 I think it was, that was basically a guidance package and a warhead stuffed into a MiG-15. Go for broke, use the MiG-21's sleek design for an advantage, give it a couple of boosters, make the main engine a ramjet. It'll fly faster than any MiG-21's ever done... for a little bit.

Weaver · February 12, 2009, 10:04:35 AM

I was also thinking that, since the SSN-2 Styx wasn't that hard to shoot down, the Spineless might make a keen coast-defence anti-ship missile, given it's speed capability.....

dy031101 · February 12, 2009, 11:03:03 AM

Quote from: Sauragnmon on February 11, 2009, 09:30:36 PM
Damn, that is a sweet looking concept - it's like a MiG-21 Analogue with extra stabilizer fins on the deltas. Very cool though.

It's kinda along the same vein as some of the radical new production proposals of the Chengdu J-7...... except that Chengdu's proposals tend to do away with the nose intake in favour of a bigger radome but keep the existing wing platform.

A quick question- for the published "length" of an aircraft, does it include the pitot tube?

Knowing helps the scaling-up/down of various line drawings.

Sauragnmon · February 12, 2009, 12:09:42 PM

I don't know about pitot tubes in published length on an aircraft, one would wonder if it is or not.

As to the Chengdu proposals dispensing with the nose intake for a better radar, I laugh at the concept - the MiG-21-93 features the nose intake still, but enlarges the nose a little so as to allow the Kopyo radar set to be installed, so it can, with little modification, use the same radar as a MiG-29. It can also be refitted with the RD-33 engine.

The fun I have in mind is an Su-22, turned into a Mega-Fishbed at some point. That should be fun.

dy031101 · February 12, 2009, 12:33:42 PM

Quote from: Sauragnmon on February 12, 2009, 12:09:42 PM
As to the Chengdu proposals dispensing with the nose intake for a better radar, I laugh at the concept - the MiG-21-93 features the nose intake still, but enlarges the nose a little so as to allow the Kopyo radar set to be installed, so it can, with little modification, use the same radar as a MiG-29. It can also be refitted with the RD-33 engine.

Isn't the whole Kopyo family of radars real compact stuff to begin with?

The Kopyo isn't used by MiG-29 but is based on technologies used by MiG-29's radar.

Most of Chengdu's proposals are insurance policies in case the FC-1 and the J-10 project should run into massive delays or even get axed, so probably they were made with being able to adopt the avionics suites (at least parts that are successful) of the FC-1 and/or the J-10 in mind. Besides, modern radars of larger sizes can still outperform the Kopyo (Kopyo can search 57~75km...... Zhuk can do 90km, APG-67 is claimed to be capable of over 100).