Tuesday 13 November 2018

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15bis - Various users

Edit: Sorry, we forgot to upload the pic. The have been added now.
The MiG-15bis was used by many countries and some of them evaluated captured exemplars, like the Republic of China (Taiwan) or the USA.

  • Cuba: The only American user to equip the MiG-15bis in their air force. Shortly after the end of the Cuban Revolution in 1959 the Cuban government starts negotiations with the USSR for buying armament. After some negotiations, the first 41 MiG-15bis arrived disassembled to Havana in May 1961 together with another MiG-15Rbis (the reconnaissance version), MiG-15UTI (the trainer version) and MiG-19P. During June 1961 they were assembled with the help of Soviet advisors. They were assigned to the newly created "Primer Escuadrón de caza 'Carlos Ulloa'", named after a fallen pilot who died at the Bay of Pigs invasion. They saw action patrolling the Cuban airspace during the Cuban missile crisis and some times there were even some interception flights against American fighters. Some Cuban MiG-15s were involved in the attack on the CIA ship Rex and some skirmishes until 1964 when they were replaced by the MiG-17. On Cuban hands they worked together with their more advanced models like the MiG-19 or the MiG-21, which, as they were more advanced, required better trained pilots which the Cuban Air Force lacked (they were undergoing training in Eastern bloc countries like Czechoslovakia) so, as the MiG-15bis was easier to fly, it was well liked by their pilots. Nowadays many of them are conserved in the Cuban Air Force Museum.
  • Republic of China (ROC) (Taiwan): During the many clashes and dogfights of the 1950s and part of the 1960s between the ROC airforce and the People's Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) one Shenyang J-2 (PLAAF's designation for the MiG-15bis which, unlike the MiG-15UTI it was never manufactured in mainland China) defected to Tao-Yuan, in the island of Taiwan. It was the 3rd March 1962 when the pilot Liu-Chen, belonging to the 8th Squadron, 6th Division, 16th Group, 3rd Wing departed from Lu-Qiao airport located in the city of Zhejiang to Tao-Yuan airbase in Taiwan. The aircraft was repainted in ROC's colours, was test-flown by the ROC's Air Force and nowadays it's preserved at the ROC's museum in Taipei.
  • United States of America: During the course of the Korean war, a North Korean pilot, No Kum Sok, defected with his MiG-15bis from Sunan airbase (at the outskirts of Pyongyang) to Kimpo airbase in South Korea on 21st September 1953. Luckily for him, he wasn't neither chased by North Korean fighters because he was too far away when the alarm was raised nor American fighters as the radar in Kimpo was temporarily shut down and he landed the opposite way in the runaway, almost hitting a F-86 Sabre which was landing at the same time from the opposite direction. No Kum Sok was given a reward of 100.000$ offered by the Operation Moolah and he moved on to live in the USA. His aircraft was taken shortly after from Kimpo to Okinawa, in Japan, where it was repainted with USAAF markings and was test flown by Cpt. H.E. Collins and Maj. Chuck Yeager. It was later shipped to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, in Dayton, Ohio, after diplomat efforts to return it to North Korea turned unsuccessful and nowadays it's displayed at the National Museum of the United States Air Force.












Sources:
1. http://www.urrib2000.narod.ru/EqMiG15.html (translated)
2. http://www.hobbymastercollector.com/HA2411.html
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Moolah
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Kum-sok
5. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters

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