The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-1 was the first design to achieve production status of an OKB (experimental construction bureau) project directed by Artem I. Mikoyan and Mikhail Y. Gurevich (hence the "MiG" name). It was conceived as a high altittude fighter under the OKB's designation of Kh.
The prototype, that suffered various changes, received the denomination of I-200 and flew for the first time on 5th April 1940 achieving the speed of 403mph (648.5km/h) at 22640ft (6900m) of altittude on the following 24th May. Second and third prototypes flew on 9th May and 6th June 1940 respectively at the Khodynka Aerodrome in Moscow. Meanwhile, state trials were being performed in parallel and so, the prototype was considered as ready to be manufactured on 12th September 1940.
The MiG-1 was powered by a 1350hp Mikulin AM-35A inline engine and was armed with two 7.62mm ShKAS guns. Maneouvrability and handling were considered not adequated and longitudinal stability and control responses were poor. So a programme of peripehal redesign paralleled manufacture of an initial batch of 100 aircraft, the last of which was completed in December 1940. The first eight aircraft didn't have jettisonable canopies, something that was added later as it was changed by jettisonable aft-sliding ones.
On 3rd December 1940 the VVS (Soviet Air Force) ordered that the 41st Fighter Regiment based at the Crimean town of Kacha, was to conduct the operational testing of the I-200 and that they were to be transferred to the 146th Fighter Regiment at Yevpatoria, in Crimea too, in order to perform pilot training and conclude trials. By 22nd February 1941 the fighter had already been issued to various fighter units, notably the 89th Fighter Regiment, based in Kaunas, Lithuania and 41st Fighter Regiment, based in Bialystok, in Poland.
On 1st June 1941 they were spreaded more with 31 assigned to the Baltic Military District, 37 to the Western Special Military District, one to the Kiev Military District and 8 in the Odessa Military District. From a total of 77 aircraft, 55 of them were operational. Additional 8 were assigned to the Soviet Navy but there only four pilots were trained to handle either the MiG-1 or the MiG-3.
They couldn't be used in combat for long as most of them were destroyed or captured when Germany invaded the USSR. However, one of them was still in the inventory of the VVS in 1944 when it was marked as withdrawn that same year.
It's interesting to point that one of the captured MiG-1 was exposed in Berlin in a propaganda exhibition called "Russenparadies" in 1942 where they shown captured Soviet material. The exhibition was bombed, destroying most of the exposed material and the MiG-1, by German communists leaded by the German Communist Bruno Baum.
Sources:
1. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-1
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