Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-9

MiG-9
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Type	Fighter
Manufacturer	Mikoyan-Gurevich
Maiden flight	April 24 1946
Primary users	Soviet Air Force PLA Air Force
Produced	1946-1948
Number built	598

The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-9 Fargo (Template:Lang-ru) (not to be confused with a late development of the MiG-3 also called "MiG-9") was a first-generation Soviet turbojet fighter and attack aircraft developed by Mikoyan-Gurevich in the years immediately after World War II.

Development

The MiG-9 was developed from the I-300 (also called the izdeliye F {model F or product F} by OKB) prototype which first flew on April 24 1946 by test pilot Alexei N. Grinchik. The I-300 became Russia's first pure jet fighter only by one hour, beating the Yakovlev Yak-15 by mere minutes.

The I-300's design was an all-metal design, with the engines located behind the cockpit in the lower fuselage, with the exhaust exiting under the tail unit. This design was frequently used by the Soviet OKBs in early jet designs. Several issues arose attempting to protect the tail unit from the hot exhaust gasses, which eventually lead to a steel laminate heatshield being installed along most of the bottom of the tail.

The I-300's featured simple straight wings with slotted flaps with delta shaped tail surfaces. Of note is the I-300 was one of the first Russian designed fighters featuring tricycle landing gear.

Its powerplant comprised two RD-20 turbojets, which were near copies of the captured German BMW 003. In some instances due to shortages and failed delivery of the RD-20 engines, actual BMW 003 engines were used in some production aircraft.

There were four bag-type fuel tanks in the fuselage and three in each wing, providing a total internal fuel capacity of 1,625 liters (429 US gallons).

While the planned armament was based on the NL-57 57mm cannon mounted in the centerline engine intake bulkhead , the production versions of the MiG-9 were commonly armed with a single 37 mm cannon and two NS-23 23 mm cannon. The mounting of the three cannon were unusual with the NL-37 being mounted in the centerline engine intake bulkhead, and the two smaller cannon firing out the lower lip of the intake. This unusual location of heavy cannon is suspected to have caused several pilot deaths due to gun gas ingestion and lead to restricitons on the heavy cannon use at various altitudes.

Unusually the I-300 did not feature an ejection seat.

The I-300 reached a speed of 565 mph (910 km/h) during initial tests, and after further refinement, it entered service with the VVS as the MiG-9 during the winter of 1946-47. The jet had many performance- and steering-related problems, however it was put into service mainly because of political considerations. These political considerations lead directly to the death of Alexei N. Grinchik on July 11th 1946 when he crashed a prototype I-300 while flying demonstration flights for the VVS leadership and government officials.

File:Mig9-7.jpg

MiG-9 "The Butterfly"

The final production MiG-9 was allocated the NATO reporting name of "Fargo" and the Soviet designation I-301. Later designs of the MiG-9 attempted to resolve many of the issues encountered in the I-300, including the fit of a rectangular fin to the 37 millimeter cannon barrel, giving the configuration the nickname "The Butterfly", however none of them worked very well. In the end, the entire nose was redesigned with the cannon barrel muzzles moved behind the engine intake and with the cockpit moved forward. The result was the single "MiG-9M", which also featured an ejection seat and RD-21 engines, the RD-21 being an afterburning variant of the RD-20 / BMW-003.

The MiG-9 was deployed largely in the ground-attack role and 610 aircraft were built in different versions by the time production ended in 1948.

Versions

• I-300 : Prototype.
• MiG-9 (F) : "aircraft F" - the only serial variant, RD-20 engines
• MiG-9 (FP) : "aircraft FP", I-302 - prototype with modified weapons layout
• MiG-9 (FL) : "aircraft FL", I-305 - variant with Lyulka TR-1A engines, not completed
• MiG-9 (FF) : "aircraft FF", I-307 - prototypes with afterburned RD-20F or RD-21 engines
• MiG-9L: Prototype aircraft to test the avionics for the Raduga KS-1 Komet air-launched antishipping cruise missile
• MiG-9M (FR) : "aircraft FR", I-308 - modified prototypes with RD-21 engines
• MIG-9UTI : Two-seat training aircraft. Around 80 built. Also known as the I-301T.

Operators

• Template:USSR
  • Soviet Air Force
• Template:PRC
  • People's Liberation Army Air Force

Specifications (MiG-9)

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Notes and references

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-9

See also

Designation sequence
MiG-3 - MiG-8 - MiG-9 (I-210)/MiG-9 (I-301) - MiG-13 (I-250) - MiG-15 - MiG-17 Related lists
List of military aircraft of the Soviet Union and the CIS - List of fighter aircraft Template:Mikoyan aircraft