Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21bis

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21bis

Type	Fighter aircraft, Military aircraft, supersonic jet fighter
Configuration	Low wing aircraft
Propulsion	Jet aircraft
Manufacturer	Mikoyan and Gurevich
Author(s)	MiG-21bis team Petar Jedvaj David Culp Raptor Stuart Cassie Gary Brown Brendan Black bugman Tomaskom
FDM	JSBSim
--aircraft=	MiG-21bis
Status	Early production
FDM
Systems
Cockpit
Model
Supports
Development
Website
Repository
Download
Forum
License
This aircraft is NOT available under the GNU GPL 2, the primary license of the FlightGear project. This means that parts cannot be reused in the official FlightGear repositories.

The Mikoyan and Gurevich MiG-21bis is a supersonic jet fighter aircraft, designed by the Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau in the Soviet Union.

FlightGear Versions

There are currently 2 versions of the MiG-21bis available in FlightGear:

• An older version in FGAddon
• An actively developed version in a Git repository

Eventually, the version in FGAddon will be updated at intervals with the version on Git. The instructions below are covering the Git version, as it is more complete and realistic both in terms of flight model, systems and for supporting military simulation.

Performance Data

Maximum Speed: 1,468 mph

Rate of climb: 44,280 ft/min

Service Ceiling: 58,400 ft

Range: 751 mi

Keyboard Controls

Key	Function
s	Press start button
Ctrl+f	Toggle Afterburner Reheat (CLR)
Ctrl+B	Air brakes
Ctrl+d	Deploy braking parachute
Ctrl+t	Jettison braking parachute
m	Engage nose wheel steering
c	Toggle canopy
⇧ Shift+S	Activate smokepod (the color can be changed using drop-down menu MiG-21 -> Smokepod Color)

Flaps and Gears

Key	Function
]	Flaps down
[	Flaps up
⇧ Shift+G	Gear handle down
g	Gear handle up
Ctrl+g	Gear handle safety

Autopilot

Key	Function
Ctrl+a	Autoleveller autopilot
w	Autopilot off

Weapons

Key	Function
f	Gun trigger
q	Weapons release - release selected store
⇧ Shift+Q	Trigger flare release
n	Lock on target
⇧ Shift+N	Unlock target
i	Rotate throttle drum up grossly
⇧ Shift+I	Rotate throttle drum up fine
k	Rotate throttle drum down gross
⇧ Shift+K	Rotate throttle drum down fine
r	Pylon select next
⇧ Shift+R	Pylon select previous
Ctrl+z	Centre tank jettison

Ground-Controlled Interception (GCI)

Key	Function
F5	Request Picture
F6	Request Bogey Dope
F7	Request Cutoff

Aircraft Help

Checklists

There are ca. 10 Aircraft_Checklists, which can help in many situations.

Minimal Start-Up

If using the automatic startup using the drop-down menu MiG-21 -> Autostart/Shutdown, then you still should do a couple things:

• Set the needle of the fuel gauge manually to the correct level depending on the loaded fuel. The fuel gauge does not automatically set to the level in the tank, you need to set the initial level. In drop-down menu Equipment -> Fuel and Payload Settings you can read the value - maybe after having added an external drop-tank and having manually clicked into the "Ventral Drop Tank" slider to get it filled. Please observe that the total displayed will be in gallons, however the MiG uses litres (i.e. you need to multiply by a factor of ca. 3.8).
• Slave the gyro compass - hold down the FDS button until the Heading Indicator compass needle settles. The compass will drift over time, press the FDS button every now and again to re-slave. The FDS button is positioned just to the right at the top of the attitude indicator.
• Set the magnetic declination instrument to your current latitude to help minimize gyro error. You can find the current latitude by going to the drop-down menu Location -> Select an Airport, select your airport and read the value in the Airfield Information on the right side. The magnetic declination instrument is situated on the lower right part of the console between the pilot's legs.
• Turn on the auxiliary hydraulics for full aileron control (switch on in the middle of the top row on the switch panel on the right wall of the cockpit). Not doing so will make it very challenging to handle the roll stability and get decent roll rates.

Flying

Takeoff

1. Set flaps to takeoff (])
2. Add full military thrust, count 4-5 elephants, set full afterburner (first reheat)
3. ~150-200 km/h: 3/4 stick back
4. ~250-270 km/h: ease up the stick
5. ~340-360 km/h: takeoff (hold 10° of AoA until well above ground. Else you'll suffer tail strike)
6. Flaps up ([)
7. Gears up (g). Once verified that gears have retracted, put the safety handle back to neutral ((Ctrl+g).

Afterburner reheat is usually turned off at 600 km/h, unless you need to scramble to intercept. Second reheat (using CTRL+f) is allowed on takeoff for short runways or when you need to get in the air fast, but it isn’t a normal practice.

Landing

1. Approach with around 500 km/h
2. Flaps to landing (twice ])
3. Gear down (⇧ Shift+g). Once locked back to neutral
4. Final approach ~350 km/h
5. Once crossed the threshold idle the engine
6. Touchdown at ~250 km/h
7. Apply brakes and deploy drag chute (CTRL+d)
8. Jettison the chute before fully stopped (CTRL+t)

Engine and Throttle Management

In general the engine of the Mig21-bis is less responsive than that of a modern jet fighter - and throttle and engine management is more subtle.

N1 and N2 are the rotational speeds of the engine sections expressed in percentage instead of in the actual rate of rotation. If N1 gets too much higher than N2, you will cause an engine surge (can happen at as low as 20% separation, it's guaranteed by 30%). Therefore one needs to keep an eye on the N1 and N2 needles and sudden changes in the throttle over a large range are bad. The max N1 to N2 ratio depends on airspeed as well, so you'll have to make sure you don't blow up your engine on a dive. The tachometer r.p.m. gauge is situated on the right side of the front panel in the cockpit - below the radar warning receiver and to the left of the radar screen.

On the other hand the air intake cone in the nose is handled by the plane automatically, i.e. without necessary pilot intervention.

Second reheat (CTRL-f) is only effective below 15,000 feet mean sea level, and use should be limited to 3 minutes.

Other Things to be Aware of

• Angle of Attack: Getting into the yellow range of the AoA indicator results in a high chance of getting into a spin. Getting into the red range of the AoA indicator is not healthy.
• Compressor stalls: If indicated airspeed exceeds 1300 km/h, the compressor will stall. You'll notice this from the shaking and the drop of N1 and N2. Recovery is easy:
  • Reduce speed
  • Pull back the throttle and wait for it to spool back up
• Fuel system in negative G: The fuel system cannot feed the engine under negative G load. The engine will shut down in ~10 sec on mil thrust and ~5 sec with reheat / afterburner on. To recover:
  • Stabilise flight
  • Press and hold the starter button (s )

Weapons Management

There is a separate wiki article for MiG-21_Weapons_Management.

Radios / Communication

The radio / communication frequencies must be entered before take-off. There are two ways to do it (the usual way of using the drop-down menu Equipment -> Radio Settings does not work):

• Using the separate dialogues for the Comm radio, ADF radio and VOR/ILS radio below the MiG-21 drop-down menu.
• Using the drop-down menu MiG-21 -> Select Radio Config File to load a file. An example file radios.txt is included in the aircraft folder and contains formatting instructions, so you can create your own.

Navigation

There is an external article about navigation, which eventually will be migrated to this wiki.

External links

• Russian Aircraft Corporation "MiG"
• Wikipedia article
• FlightGear forum thread for Mig-21