American magazine The National Interest named 20 weapons that “it’s just impossible to win.” Among them, in particular, there is a Soviet lightweight supersonic front-line fighter of the third generation MiG-21.
The publication notes that, despite the large number of MiG-21 aircraft shot down in Vietnam and the Middle East, the latter turned out to be “cheap, fast, maneuverable and not requiring special maintenance.” The magazine notes that, taking into account the clones, about 13 thousand of these fighters were produced in the world, used in about 50 countries around the world.
The publication notes that the MiG-21 is still in service with the Air Force (Air Force) of 26 states, in particular, India, China, Vietnam and Romania. “Does anyone wonder if the MiG-21 and its variants will still fly in 2034?” Asks The National Interest.
The magazine notes that American pilots noted the high speed and maneuverability of the MiG-21, the appearance of which led to a revision of the requirements for fighters in the United States. “In a sense, the MiG-21 is the AK-47 (or T-34, if you will) of the world of fighters,” the newspaper writes.
In September, the American edition of Breaking Defense wrote , referring to Robert Work, US Deputy Secretary of Defense in the presidential government Barack Obama that the use of artificial intelligence systems (AI ) can “revive” old aircraft, such as the MiG-21.
In October 2018, the author of the American edition of The Drive Tyler Rogoway commented the video posted on Facebook by the Romanian Ministry of National Defense. According to him, the maneuvers of the Romanian light fighter MiG-21 remind how widespread the “lever and steering wheel” techniques (after the name of the popular book on aircraft control written by the pilot Wolfgang Langevich) are in reality in the “Kalashnikov fighters” case.