Streamlined is the word that
made the Mig-15 famous even in western influenced postwar propaganda
dissemination materials, although it is
a pointive necessity for me to build a regular kit for the Mig-15 to
justify the fluidly smooth aerodynamic feature of the aircraft, a plastic kit
of this plane of my preferred scale size is not a popular stock in local hobby shops so although inconvenient
to undertake resorting again to using thin alloy sheets and artboard to
create “Marzs Scales and Things’s “
interpretation of a single seat
Mikoyan-Gurevich Mig-15 "Fagot" Jet fighter seemed unavoidable, with the knowledge of cardboard crumpling and alloy flexing will hinder the goal to achieve the extremely streamlined
misdemeanor of the Mig-15 I went on to create a what is probably a 1:80 scale
representation of the featured plane.
As a child, …again I mean when I
was biologically a “real” child; would not have pick-up a Soviet-Russian
Aircraft model kit in a store shelve
even if its offered half a price with a free mini Toblerone chocolate bar, consciously
growing up in the 70’s up to the end of cold war turmoil in the late 80’s , Warsaw
Pact or Eastern block frontline Warplanes like the “Mig15” always
evoke realistic visions of a hellish
Nuclear Apocalypse whenever it appears news broadcast specially in countries
biased to American cultures and policies, but being a highly regarded subject
in mainstream military aviation literature its probably just fitting to feature
the Mig-15 as the ideological “omega” of a western pop-culture oriented blog writer
and a honorary introduction for other cold-war adversarial aircraft that followed.
During the 1950 to 1953 Korean
War, United States (US) headed United Nations forces (which include a Philippine
expeditionary contingent) was able to push-back Communist “North Korean (NK)”
forces that invaded western sponsored “South Korea” well beyond their dividing
borders called the “38th parallel”,
a big factor of the United Nations (UN) success against the logistically
superior Northern forces was …”Air Superiority” summarily the UN was able to run-down communist Korean Army up to the northernmost
parts of the Korean peninsula bordering “The Peoples Republic of China (PRC)”. When
the Chinese sensed the plan of UN commanders to bomb "Mao's" China
to deny NK forces sanctuary, regular Red Chinese troops crossed the “Yalu
River” to help halt the further advance of UN
forces.
The Soviet Union (USSR,Russia),
concern that a Chinese defeat will establish US Style states mastery in the region also decided
to involve itself militarily, during those times the Soviets knows that
although China is synonymous with large ground armies, it is no-match to a full
blown air-campaign by the United States. Still unwilling to commit USSR
to another “World War” Joseph Stalin decided to send token aid for the common Socialist
cause in the form of its latest top secret jet interceptor. Like a poltergeist
of the “Japanese Zero experience” for UN aerospace combatants when it first appears
for battle in the skies of North Korea,
the Mig-15 is rugged, highly maneuverable and superbly armed compared to any existing
UN Jet Fighter in service at the early part of the conflict.
To prevent the “Mig 15s” from
falling to enemy hands the Russians based it only within secured quadrants of communist
Chinese territory and flew to battle only within a designated zone at the northwest
tip of North Korea for easy retrieval if ever shot down, this designated zone
became an infamous hazard area for many UN combat aviators which eventually nicknamed
it “Mig Alley”. Probably for a while the only weakness western aviation analyst can
associate with the swept wing jet is to synonymize its aesthetic to a “fat
cigar with wings” as compared to the “sports car” like appeal of American
warplanes. Upon the opening of the “iron curtain” at the end of the cold war,
archival records officially confirmed that early squadrons of Mig-15s that went
to battle in Korea where actually flown by Russian Veteran pilots,
Credited as the plane that
ushered in the first real Jet-to-Jet dogfights in the art of modern warfare, the
Mig-15, with an engine said to have been a reverse-engineered version of
British jet-motor technology and airframe inspired by German “wonder” aircrafts
of World War II, the Russians was able to create a warplane that achieved operational
performance that are though to be astonishing for a jet powered machine of the
time. Given the NATO Codename “Fagot”
which is a cursive term in today’s street slang, fagot according to “lazy man’s dictionary” means
“a bundle of twigs, sticks, hay, etc…” , during the 1950’s the word is also commonly use to connote “a cigar”.
Able to attain speeds close to
supersonic, while still designed to be utilized as a pure “jet gunfighter” for
aerial combat, the Mig-15 is armed with multiple under-nose cannons and heavy guns
the plane have bought down many high altitude bombers of the enemy and has put
an uncomfortable strain to the once unchallenged UN air assets up to when
hostilities ceased with the implementation of the "Korean armistice" by July of
1953. The Mig15 went on to be used later in the “Vietnam war” were it still
posed a serious treat to newer and more technologically improved “capitalist” contenders
like the F86-Sabre and F4-Phantom IIs. “Warsaw Pact” nations and many Middle
East regimes like Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and
Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, North Vietnam and East Germany to
respectively name a few employ the “Fagot”
as late as to the early years of 1990’s
as a standard front-line fighter of their respective air forces..
My scratch built 1:80 scale "Mig-15 Fagot" in North Korean markings with a 1:100 scale pre-built die-cast Mig-17.
"a plastic kit of this plane of my preferred scale size is not a popular stock in local hobby shops", I found this 1/48 scale kit of the Mig-15 a few days after I finished my paper-aluminum model and the draft for this post, got it for posterity not knowing if I will ever again find the suitable circumstance to ever build it.
