Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3U

On 26th February 1943, the OKB received the order of developing an improved version of the MiG-3 for the PVO with the requirements of having a ceiling service of 12500m (41010.50ft), a take-off weight of 3100Kg (3834.33lb), a top speed of 670km/h (416.32mph) and it had to climb to 10000m (32808.40ft) in 13 minutes.
That modified version was called MiG-3U, with the U standing for "uluchsennyi", which means "improved" in Russian. To achieve those performance results, the fuselage was lengthened without central welded truss, the cockpit was moved back, raised and widened to improve visibility, the main spar of the wing wasn't longer interrupted by the radiator tunnel, horizontal tail surfaces were moved 200mm to avoid interference with the new tail wheel mechanism, it was armed with two 20mm ShVAK guns placed above the engine with 150 rounds each and they could fire synchronised or separately and the chosen engine was the AM-35A with 0.732 reduction gear built from spared AM-35A and AM-38 engines, however, due to engine shortages it was 40kg (88.18lb) heavier than expected.
First prototype was piloted by test pilot V.N.Savkin on 31st May 1943 with 5 more built between June and July of that same year with a total of 28 test flights done, they showed engine overheating problems.
The first prototype was transferred to NII-VVS (Soviet Air Force's test unit) on 23rd July to be tested by the Air Force. It was tested by Cpt. A.S. Rozanov and B.I. Khomyakov. It showed a speed of 656km/h (407.62mph) at 7000m (22965.88ft) with a ceiling of 11900m (39041.99ft) and a good aerodynamical performance with some landing problems though. Cockpit was confortable and up-to-date with the newest Soviet fighters. However it also showed some excessive vibrations and oil overheating which caused leakage specially at high altittudes.
After being repaired and modified all the prototypes were sent to 12th GvIAP for operational testing and were flight tested by Lt. P.A. Zhuravliov and checked by the technicians of the 12th GvIAP. Only three of them passed the acceptance test of the technicians while the other two of them were sent back to OKB-155 until 10th October 1943 when new AM-35A engines arrived.
The second prototype (which didn't pass the acceptance trials of the 12 th GvIAP) was furtherly modified at OKB-155 and was fitted an AM-39A engine rated at 1700/1800hp (1242.26/1342.26Kw), it had modified cowling panels, it received a new radiator, an extended fuselage tank, rear fuselage was reinforced with metal, central frame of the rear canopy was removed in order to improve visibility and horizontal tail surfaces were lowered by 200mm in order to reduce vibrations.
It flew for the first time on 19th Ocotber 1943 manned by test pilot Cpt. V.M. Savkin, chief engineer V.Fufurin and motor engineer I.V. Kotov. On 5th November a malfunction in the supercharger forced the machine to land at Noginsk airport without damaging it thanks to the deployment of the landing gear in time. Due to that landing Savkin was awarded with the Order of the Red Star.
Tests were resumed on 23rd November after the aircraft was repaired and the engine was replaced. It achieved a top speed of 707km/h (439.31mph) at 7100m (23293.96ft) and reached 5000m (16404.2ft) in four and a half minutes. It was the fastest Soviet fighter to the date. Prototype was transferred to the NII-VVS to be tested with new lighter propellers. Tests were however soon interrupted due to a flap malfunction that damaged brakes and provoked a turn-over of the aircraft at the end of the testing strip. It was repaired by the OKB-155 and was active again on 12th May 1944 but, unfortunately, on 19th May the engine failed while testing.
Given the delays and the shortage of AM-39A engines and its unreliability, the whole programme was abandoned and the MiG-3U was the last of the MiG-3.

Sources:
1. http://www.airpages.ru/eng/ru/i230.shtml
2. http://www.airpages.ru/eng/ru/i231.shtml
3. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters
4. Signal Squadron - Aircraft In action 204 - Early Mig Fighters in Action

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3 with AM-38 engine

Due to the clumsiness of the MiG-3 at low altittudes, where most of the aerial combat took place, it was decided to test the AM-38F engine on the fuselage of a MiG-3. It was rated at 1600hp and flew for the first time on 31st July 1941. Testing was prolonged for 12 days and were performed by test pilot Y.K. Stankevich and chief engineer K.N. Mkrtychan. Thanks to the additional power, the performance at low altittude got better, below the 4000m high.
It was tested in two configurations: The original one made by Zavod (factory) Nº1 in Moscow and a second one with some minor modifications proposed by the chief engineer like a new design of the exhaust stack fairings, bomb shackles removed and inert gas system was installed. With the first configuration, the original one, achieved a respectable speed of 582km/h (361,64mph) the second one achieved a better speed of 592km/h (367.85mph). The AM-38F engine could easily replace the original AM-35A without any radical changes to the fuselage, however, the cooling system proved to be insufficient for this more powerful engine, as it couldn't operate in a satisfactory when temperature on the ground was above 16ºC (60.80F). After being tested at Nil test centre, it returned to Zavod Nº1 to fix that cooling problem, but after some of those fixings, the supercharger started to be troublesome and during a test flight, the fuel tanks were deformed due to it. Twenty-two flights were performed and on 22nd September it returned again to Zavod Nº1 to be repaired. On 4th October 1941 it flew again on the airstrip of the Zavod Nº1, but on the next it crashed killing the test pilot, N.P. Baulin, however, later investigations proved that it was shot down by a German aircraft.
Given the shortage of AM-35A engines, some units operated on their own with the AM-38F engine. In fact, two aircrafts of the 402nd IAP were fitted with it in November 1941 and were tested by the regimental Commander Major K.A. Grudzev and the Squadron Commander B.G. Boroday who managed to shot down two enemy bombers while testing it.
The fate of those modified fighters, however, is unknown.

Sources:
1. http://www.airpages.ru/eng/ru/mig3_2.shtml
2.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-3
3. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/МиГ-3 (translated)
4. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters
5. Signal Squadron - Aircraft In action 204 - Early Mig Fighters in Action

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3, part seven, Spanish MiG-3 pilots in WW2

It's not a very known fact, but after the Spanish Civil War ended, the Republican government continued in the exile and so, many of the veterans, among them various pilots, wanted to fight against fascism that helped nationalist to win the war. Most of these pilots served in the Soviet Air Force and some of them flew MiG-3s.
One of those pilots, Francisco Meroño Pellicer, the third foreign ace to serve in the VVS, flew a MiG-3 and a MiG-1 that was quickly withdrawn from service. Francisco, nicknamed "Diablo Rojo" (Red Devil), got interned into a French concentration camp for refugees of the Spanish Civil War in Southern France after beeing the commander of the 6th Squadron, 21st Group. After being released from the concentration camp in summer 1939 he had to emigrate to the USSR where he worked in an automobile factory. When the war between Germany and the USSR started, he enlisted voluntarily in the rows of the Red Army. After the first days of the war, he was called, together with other 18 Spanish ex-pilots to train due to their war experience. He was assigned to the 960th IAP, that was equipped with the MiG-3 and, between November 1941 and April 1942, he took part in the battle of Moscow. When the MiG-3 was taken out of service, he piloted a Lavochkin La-5.
Another of those aces, Vicente Beltrán, was another veteran pilot of the Spanish Civil War, and his story is identical, after the fall of Barcelona, he crossed the border with France, got interned and when he was released, he moved on to the USSR where he worked in the same automobile factory. When the war in the USSR started, he was allowed to serve with the 960th IAP and, apparently, he was allowed to paint a motto in Spanish in his airplane, "Viva la revolución Socialista en la URSS" (Long live the Socialist Revolution in the USSR) however, most probably, later he had to write it in Russian. He served in the battle of Moscow flying, apparently, a MiG-1 and, later, a MiG-3.
Antonio Arias, nicknamed "El Chato" (snub-nosed) was another veteran pilot of the Republican Air Force who got interned into Gurs concentration camp, in Southern France, and when he was released in August 1939, he moved on to the USSR where he worked in a tractor factory in Kharkov. The beginning of the war, took him when he was studying in Moscow, where he joined the Red Army together with other Spaniards. As he was a veteran pilot, he was assigned to the VVS and assigned to the 283rd IAP where he fought in the battle of Moscow, flying a MiG-3. In 1942, he was assigned to the 964th IAP, and his MiG-3 was replaced by a Curtiss Tomahawk.
The last of these pilots who flew the MiG-3, is Jose María Pascual Santamaria, callsign "Popeye", was another pilot who served as instructor since he moved on to the USSR. He served in the 283rd IAP flying a MiG-3 during the battle of Moscow and later, in spring 1942 he was assigned to the 788th IAP where he flew a Yakovlev Yak-1.

Sources:
1. http://1y2gm.foroactivo.com/t1665p10-pilotos-republicanos-espanoles-en-la-urss (translated)
2. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters
3. Signal Squadron - Aircraft In action 204 - Early Mig Fighters in Action

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3, part six captured MiG-3s

The MiG-3 was captured in great numbers by the Axis countries. Among them, was the Kingdom of Romania, that captured at least two of them. Apparently, they landed at the city of Melitopolm under Romanian hands,  in December 1941 piloted by defecting Ukrainian pilots. It was manned by Captain Cantacuzino (who eventually would become the top Romanian Ace of the war) during early 1942 while he was participating in a ten-day Bf.109E conversion course.
The German Luftwaffe captured much more of them, some sources claim up to 22 of them. As they were regarded as inferior to the Bf.109F some were sent to Rechlin test centre to be tested but most of them were either destroyed or their fate is unknown.

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-3
2. Osprey - Aircraft of the Aces 54 - Romanian Aces Of WWII

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3, part five

The many amounts of flaws detected in the Mikoyan Gurevich MiG-1, forced Mikoyan to make many changes to the design. Those testing were applied to a scale model and tested in the wind tunnel at the TsAGI (Central Aero and Hydrodinamics Institute). It was the I-200 ,technically the fourth prototype of the MiG-1, that saw those changes applied and it flew for the first time on 29th October 1940 and was accepted into production after passing its state acceptance trials. It was named as MiG-3 when the production chain was set in December 1940 with the first 20 of them released before the end of the year.
The changes were many:
The engine ,a 1350hp Mikulin AM-35A liquid cooled V12 engine, was moved forward 100mm (4in) to improve longitudinal stability, a new water radiator (OP-310) was fitted, an adittional 250 litres (66 US Gal) was added underneath the cockpit, outer wing panel dihedral was increased by one degree in order to increase lateral stability, another fuel tank was placed under the engine, piping was fitted to use cooled exaust gases to reduce the hazard of fire, the back of the pilot's seat war armoured with an 8mm (0.31in) plate which was increased to 9mm (0.35in) in later models, supercharger intakes were streamlined, main landing gear was also strengthned, canopy glazing was extended aft to improve the view of the rear, which allowed the installation of an RSI-1 radio equipment, later improved with an RSI-4, gunsight was improved, more ammo magazines for the 7.62mm ShKAS machine guns were fitted up to 750 rounds per gun and two additional hardpoints were added under the wings so total armament was one 12,7mm Berezin UB machine gun, two 7.62mm ShKAS machine guns placed in the cowl and either 6 RS-82 rockets or 2 100kg (220lb) of bombs. Later models had two additional 7.62mm machine guns placed in the wings.

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-3
2. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighter
3. Signal Squadron - Aircraft In action 204 - Early Mig Fighters in Action

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3, part four

The majority of MiG-3 serving with the VVS were transferred to the PVO, where their flaws at low altittude weren't so important. On 10th July 1941 two-hundred and ninety nine were assigned to the PVO (the Soviet Aerial Defence corps) with most of them being assigned to the 6th PVO corps at Moscow. That transference left the VVS with just 293 MiG-3 and the Naval Aviation with just 60. Six-hundred and fifty-two aircrafts in total in spite of the expected thousand of them.
That way, when Germany launched the Operation Typhoon (the offensive against Moscow) on 1st October 1941, 257 were under VVS' command, 209 to the PVO and 46 to the Naval Aviation. A total of just 512, one-hundred and forty less from 10th July. However, on 5th December, when the USSR launched the counter-attack at Moscow that drove the Germans back, a total of 552 machines were active, 210 with the VVS, 309 with the PVO and 33 with the Naval Aviation.
During the winter of 1941-1942 the remaining MiG-3 were transferred completely to the Naval Aviation and the PVO leaving the VVS without any of them. That way, on 1st May 1942 the Naval Aviation had 37 aircrafts under their command and the PVO had 323.
Its usage went gradually decreasing and, by 1st June 1944 only the PVO had some of them, 17 to be more precisse, in active service and they were completely gone by 1st January 1945. It's obvious that, even if they weren't employed in combat, they were used as trainers.
Even with its many flaws, Aleksandr Pokryshkin, the third leading Soviet, and Allied, ace of the war, recalled about the MiG-3:
"Its designers rarely succeeded in matching both the fighter's flight characteristics with its firepower... the operational advantage of the MiG-3 seemed to be obscured by its certain defects. However, these advantages could undoubtedly by exploited by a pilot able to discover them".

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-3
2. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters
3. Signal Squadron - Aircraft In action 204 - Early Mig Fighters in Action

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3, part three

When Operation Barbarossa began on 21st June 1941, most MiG-3 together with the least advanced version, MiG-1, were assigned to the border military districts of the USSR.
In fact, the Leningrad Military District had 164 assigned, the Baltic Military District had 135, the Western Special Military Distric had 233, 190 assigned to the Kiev Military District and 195 to the Odessa Military District making a total of 917 of them available with just 81 being non-operational. Only 64 of them were assigned to the Naval Aviation with 38 in the Baltic Fleet and 26 in the Black Sea Fleet.
Fourth and 55th Fighter Regiments, the ones equipped with MiG-3 as their main fighter, served in the Odessa Military District, and their experiences during the first day of the war, can be taken as typical. The 4th Fighter Regiment, shot down a Romanian Bristol Blenheim, but also lost one aircraft due to a collision with an obstacle when taking-off. On the other hand, the ones of the 55th Fighter Regiment, with unexperienced pilots, only managed to damage a German Henschel Hs.126 although they claimed to have shot down three German aircrafts with the price of three pilots killed and nine aircraft lost. As an unusual fact, three of them were sent down on a reconnaissance mission to Ploesti, in Romania, but were forced to land because they didn't properly calculate the fuel consumption and, therefore, ran out of it before even reaching their target.

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-3
2. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters
3. Signal Squadron - Aircraft In action 204 - Early Mig Fighters in Action

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3, part two

MiG-3s were delivered to the frontline units in the spring of 1941 and only a handful of pilots were trained to flight them as most of VVS's pilots were used to pilot the Polikarpov I-153 and I-153 biplanes and the I-16 monoplane. In spite of the many improvements made from the MiG-1, it remained hard and tricky to control. Due to the defective pilots training programme, there were more MiG-3 than trained pilots available when Germany attacked USSR in late June 1941.
Just by the beginning of June 1941 there were 1029 MiG-3 available and only 494 trained pilots. In fact, prior to the official invasion date, 21st June 1941, the Luftwaffe made various reconnaissance flights over western USSR and faced MiG-3 both from 31st Fighter Regiment and 4th Fighter Regiment. More exactly, on 10th April 1941, three untrained pilots of the 31st Fighter Regiment, belonging to the PVO (Soviet Air Defences) tried to intercept a Luftwaffe high-altittude reconnaissance aicraft over Kaunas, in Lithuania, flying at 9000m high (30000ft). The aircraft entered in an irrecoverable spin and the pilots were forced to bail out, one of them being killed.
However, the trained pilots of the 4th Fighter Regiment were able to claim three German high-altittude reconnaissance aircraft in the previous days of the German invasion.
Anyway, that kind of aerial combat proved to be uncommon in the Eastern Front, where most of aerial combat took place in altittudes below 5000m high (16000ft) where the MiG-3 was outclassed not only by the Messerschmitt Bf.109F but also by other contemporary Soviet fighters like the Yakovlev Yak-1. Furthermore, the shortage of ground-attack aircrafts, pushed the MiG-3 into that role where it didn't shine as it was totally unsuited. One of Soviet pilots, Alexander E. Shvarev said that 'The MiG was perfect at altittudes of 4000m and above. But at lower altittudes it was, as they say, a  "cow". That was the first weakness . The second was its armament: weapons failure dogged this aircraft . The third weakness was its gunsights, which were inaccurate: that's why we closed in as much as we could and fired at point blank'.

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-3
2. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3, part one.

The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3 was a Soviet fighter and interceptor aircraft used during the World War II. It was a development of the previous MiG-1 by the OKO (Experimental Design Department) of zavod (factory) No.1 to fix the problems encountered during the development and testing of the MiG-1.
It replaced the MiG-1 on the production line at Factory No.1 on 20th December 1940 and was manufactured in large numbers during the first six-seven months of 1941 before the production line of the factory No.1 was converted to manufacture the Ilyushin Il-2.
When Operation Barbarossa began, on 22nd June 1941, around 1000 of MiG-3 were in active service with either the VVS (Soviet Air Forces), the PVO (Soviet Air Defence Forces or the Soviet Naval Aviation. It was a difficult aircraft to fly in peacetime and it was even harder to handle in combat. Designed for high-altittude combat, but most of the aerial skirmishes in the Eastern Front took place at low altittudes where the German Messerschmitt Bf.109F (the backbone of the Luftwaffe fighter force during almost all the war) was superior to all of its Soviet adversaries. During autumn-winter 1941 it was pressed into service by fitting either rocket launchers under the wings or small bombs, but it didn't stand out in that role. As the war progressed, they were assigned to the PVO, where their weaknesses didn't matter that much as they weren't commited to frontline forces. All of them were withdrawn from active service with the last one being withdrawn by 1944.

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-3
2. Signal Squadron - Aircraft In action 204 - Early Mig Fighters in Action
3. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters