Model of a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21PF ('Fishbed-D') of the Hungarian Air Force at the RAF Museum, Cosford, Shropshire, 8 July 2020.

The MiG-21 is one of the most significant and successful fighters ever produced. First flown in 1956, it entered service in 1959 and is still in service with some air forces, having gone through a considerable development over the years.

It has seen combat in many war zones but perhaps most significant was the Vietnam War. A relatively simple aircraft that was easy to maintain by third world countries such as Vietnam, the great advantage it had in that war was that it was used purely as a short range interceptor directed by radar when US aircraft had to operate over long ranges to their targets.

An example of the success of the MiG-21 was in December 1966 when 14 Republic F-104 Thunderchief fighter-bombers were shot down for no loss of their own.

When the sophisticated, powerful McDonnell F-4 Phantom was introduced to counter the Mig-21, the USAAF and USN had high hopes of reversing the situation, the Phantom having the most sophisticated radar, the much heavier and more advanced armament, the highest speed and the greatest acceleration. However, what happened in practice was that the crew tended to suffer from 'information overload' from all the information being fed to them from the complex avionics system and in practice the simple and nimble MiG-21 often had the upper hand.