Mikoyan MiG-29 (Микоян МиГ-29; NATO reporting name "Fulcrum") is a Soviet, now Russian, twin-engine lightweight front-line fighter designed by the Mikoyan bureau. It first flew in 1977, entered Soviet service in 1983 and became one of the most widely exported fighters of its generation: more than 1,600 MiG-29s of different versions have been delivered to customers, and the type has flown in more than 25 countries.[1][2] The single-seat fighters were built in Moscow. The two-seat MiG-29UB combat trainer, in which pilots learn to fly the type, was built in Gorky, as Nizhny Novgorod was called from 1932 to 1990, at aircraft plant No. 21 — today the Sokol Aircraft Plant (авиазавод «Сокол»). By early 1993 more than 200 two-seaters had come from Gorky, and the plant built 274 MiG-29UBs in all.[1][3]

Nizhny Novgorod, one of Russia's largest cities, stands on the Volga where the Oka flows into it, about 400 km east of Moscow. Its aircraft plant, the maker of the MiG-31 interceptor, exported its MiG-29UBs, together with the MiG-21, to more than 30 countries; after the end of the Soviet Union it upgraded the two-seaters, delivered them to the Russian Air Force and to foreign customers, and in the 2010s built major airframe sections for the newest versions of the fighter, including the carrier-based MiG-29K.[5][9][10]

A light fighter for the front line

In 1969 the Soviet Defence Ministry announced a competition for a future front-line fighter, drawing on the experience of air combat in Vietnam and the Middle East. In 1972 the Air Force divided the requirement in two: a heavy multirole fighter, entrusted to the Sukhoi bureau, and a light, simple fighter to be built in large numbers, entrusted to the Mikoyan bureau. The final layout of the MiG-29, with two RD-33 turbofans, was approved on 15 July 1974; it was the first entirely new aircraft created under the bureau's general designer Rostislav Belyakov after the death of Artem Mikoyan in 1970. The fighter was intended to win air superiority over the battlefield, to cover troops and rear areas from the air and to counter enemy air reconnaissance, and also to strike ground and sea targets.[1]

The prototype first flew on 6 October 1977. After an extensive test programme the MiG-29 went into series production in 1982 at the Moscow plant No. 30, Znamya Truda ("Banner of Labour"), and in August 1983 it was accepted by the Soviet Air Force to replace the MiG-21 and MiG-23.[1] Its wing and fuselage form a single lifting body, which roughly doubled the lift compared with fighters of the previous generation and, with a thrust-to-weight ratio above one, gave the aircraft fast acceleration, a high rate of climb and tight turns.[1][2] The MiG-29 became the main fighter of the Russian Air Force, and four countries bought it more than once; in most of the countries that acquired it, it became the main light front-line fighter of the national air force.[2] Later versions include the MiG-29SE with more fuel and an upgraded radar, the carrier-based MiG-29K and its two-seat sister MiG-29KUB, and the MiG-35, a deep modernisation of the MiG-29M.[1][2]

The two-seater from Gorky

To prepare pilots for the new fighter, the Mikoyan bureau developed a two-seat combat trainer on the basis of the single-seater, the MiG-29UB. It has no radar: instead, its systems simulate the use of radar-guided missiles, while keeping the gun and short-range missiles.[2][1] The plant described its version as intended both for flight training by day and by night in any weather and for close manoeuvring air combat; it carried R-73 short-range missiles, unguided rockets, bombs and a GSh-301 gun, and could reach Mach 2.1.[6]

In 1984 an order of the Soviet Minister of the Aviation Industry brought the Gorky aviation production association into the MiG-29 programme, and the plant began to build the two-seat version.[3][5] The first Gorky-built MiG-29UB was taken into the air on 2 December 1985 by the plant's senior test pilot Vladimir Kherodinov, together with the Mikoyan bureau's test pilot Valery Menitsky.[4][3] Series production began the same year.[2] The division of labour lasted: the single-seat fighters came from Moscow, and the two-seaters from Gorky. By early 1993 more than 1,500 MiG-29s had been built — more than 1,200 single-seaters from plant No. 30 in Moscow and more than 200 MiG-29UBs from plant No. 21 in Gorky.[1] In all, the plant built 274 MiG-29UBs.[3]

The plant's own test pilots flew the production two-seaters. Kherodinov tested production MiG-29UBs from 1985 to 1990; Vladimir Rakhmanov, a test pilot at the plant from 1980 and later a Hero of Russia, tested more than 450 production MiG-21s, MiG-25s, MiG-29s and MiG-31s.[4][12] On 22 June 1990 Kherodinov was killed with the plant's test pilot V. V. Bespalov during a test flight of a MiG-29UB.[4]

The plant's own history names the MiG-21 and the MiG-29UB as its most famous products, exported to more than 30 countries.[5]

After the Soviet Union

By early 1993, Kommersant reported, the plant had lost 80 per cent of the Defence Ministry's orders for its two main products, the MiG-31 interceptor and the MiG-29. The paper noted that the plant built the MiG-29 only in its two-seat trainer version, and that exports of these were small.[7] In the 1990s the plant carried out a programme of upgrading the trainer into the MiG-29UBT, which significantly increased its combat effectiveness.[5]

In the late 2000s the MiG-29UB was again a large part of the plant's work. In 2009 it delivered six MiG-29UBs to the Russian Air Force under a state contract; that year they made up 45 per cent of the plant's shipments.[8][9] Under a commission agreement with the state arms exporter Rosoboronexport, one MiG-29UB was delivered to a foreign customer in May 2012 and two more were being prepared for 2013. In the same years the plant modernised two-seaters for another foreign customer: in May 2011 the first upgraded aircraft went for flight tests to Zhukovsky, and in December 2012 the plant shipped a MiG-29UB rebuilt to the MiG-29UPG UB standard.[10][11] The MiG-29UPG upgrade was being applied to India's MiG-29s: in 2015 the MiG corporation said that 63 Indian fighters were to be modernised to this standard.[13]

Building the new MiG-29s

From 2009 the plant worked in cooperation with the MiG corporation on the newest versions of the fighter — the carrier-based MiG-29K and MiG-29KUB and the land-based MiG-29M and MiG-29M2. Sokol built some of their main airframe assemblies: forward fuselage sections, wing tank structures, air intakes, fuel tanks and drop tanks.[8][9] In 2012 alone it shipped seven forward fuselages and ten wing tank structures for the MiG-29K/KUB, and also supplied assemblies for the KR/KUBR versions.[10] The MiG-29K/KUB was being built for the Indian Navy and the Russian Navy: in 2015 the MiG corporation planned to deliver six MiG-29Ks to India in each of 2015 and 2016 and ten MiG-29K/KUBs to the Russian Navy.[13]

In 2016 Sokol became a branch of the MiG corporation.[3] At the end of 2017, as series production of the MiG-35 — the newest member of the family — was being launched for the Russian Aerospace Forces, an industry source told Interfax that its final assembly would take place at the MiG plant at Lukhovitsy near Moscow, while a significant share of the assembly of its major components would be concentrated at Sokol in Nizhny Novgorod.[14]

Memory

Vladimir Kherodinov, who flew the first MiG-29UB built in Gorky and died testing another, is buried in Nizhny Novgorod at the Novo-Sormovskoye Cemetery.[4] Far from the Volga, a MiG-29UB two-seater is on display at the Flying Heritage Collection in Washington state, USA.

See also

Sources

  1. Victory Museum (Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War), Moscow — "Front-line multirole fighter MiG-29 (USSR)", exhibit description (in Russian)
  2. Russian Aircraft Corporation MiG — "MiG-29/MiG-29UB/MiG-29SE", official website, 2020 (in English)
  3. Nizhny Novgorod Association of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs — "Created in the first five-year plan: the Sokol aircraft plant", 1 February 2022 (in Russian) (archive)
  4. testpilot.ru — "Kherodinov Vladimir Alekseyevich", Honoured Test Pilot of the USSR (1938–1990) (in Russian) (archive)
  5. Nizhny Novgorod Aircraft Building Plant Sokol — "Our history", official website of the plant, 2004 (in English)
  6. Nizhny Novgorod Aircraft Building Plant Sokol — "Fighter-trainer MiG-29UB, version B", official website of the plant, 2004 (in English)
  7. Kommersant — Mikhail Sergeyev, "A business aircraft instead of MiGs", No. 33, 24 February 1993 (in Russian)
  8. OAO Nizhny Novgorod Aircraft Building Plant Sokol — Annual report for 2009 (in Russian, PDF in a RAR archive)
  9. OAO Nizhny Novgorod Aircraft Building Plant Sokol — Annual report for 2010 (in Russian, PDF)
  10. OAO Nizhny Novgorod Aircraft Building Plant Sokol — Annual report for 2012 (in Russian, PDF)
  11. OAO Nizhny Novgorod Aircraft Building Plant Sokol — Annual report for 2011 (in Russian, PDF)
  12. testpilot.ru — "Rakhmanov Vladimir Ivanovich", Hero of Russia, test pilot (in Russian) (archive)
  13. Russian Aircraft Corporation MiG — "RAC MiG: Russia has delivered to India more than ten kits for upgrading the MiG-29", reprint of a TASS report of 17 June 2015 (in Russian)
  14. Interfax — "Russia will start producing new MiG-35 fighters from 2018", 26 December 2017 (in Russian) (archive)