Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17

	Email		Print
	Bookmark		Link

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17

The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17 is a jet fighter aircraft

Fighter aircraft

A fighter aircraft is a military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat with other aircraft, as opposed to a bomber, which is designed primarily to attack ground targets by dropping bombs....
produced in the USSR from 1952 and operated by numerous air forces in many variants. Licence production was carried out in East Germany, Poland (PZL-Mielec Lim-6) and the Peoples Republic of China (Shenyang J-5). USAF/DoD reporting name "Type 38", NATO

NATO

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization , also called the Atlantic Alliance, is a military alliance established by the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949....
reporting name "Fresco".

MiG-17 design was generally based on a previously successful Mikoyan and Gurevich

Mikhail Gurevich

Mikhail Iosifovich Gurevich was a Soviet Union aircraft designer, a partner of the famous MiG military aviation bureau.Born to a family of a winery mechanic in a small township of Rubanshchina , in 1910 he graduated from gymnasium in Akhtyrka with the silver medal and entered the Mathematics department at Kharkov University....
fighter, the MiG-15.

Discussion

Ask a question about 'Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17'

Start a new discussion about 'Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17'

Answer questions from other users

Full Discussion Forum

Encyclopedia

The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17 is a jet fighter aircraft

Fighter aircraft

NATO

Development

The MiG-17 design was generally based on a previously successful Mikoyan and Gurevich

Mikhail Gurevich

Swept wing

A swept-wing is a wing planform common on jet aircraft capable of near-sonic or supersonic speeds. The wings are swept back instead of being set at right angles to the fuselage which was common on propeller.driven aircraft and early jets....
with a "compound sweep" configuration: a 45° angle near the fuselage, and a 42° angle for the outboard part of the wings. Other easily visible differences to its predecessor were the three wing-fences

Wing fence

Wing fences, also known as boundary layer fences and potential fences are fixed aerodynamics devices attached to aircraft wings. Not to be confused with wingtip device#Wingtip fence, wing fences are flat metal plates fixed to the upper surfaces parallel to the airflow....
on each wing, instead of the MiG-15's two, and the addition of a ventral fin. The MiG-17 shared the same Klimov VK-1

Klimov VK-1

The Klimov VK-1 was the first Soviet Union jet engine to see significant production. It was developed by Vladimir Yakovlevich Klimov and first produced by the GAZ 116 works....
engine and the rest of its construction was similar. The first prototype, designated "SI" by the construction bureau, was flown on the 14 January 1950, piloted by Ivan Ivashchenko.

Despite the SI prototype's crash on 17 March 1950, tests of another prototype "SI-2" and experimental series aircraft "SI-02" and "SI-01" in 1951, were generally successful, and on 1 September 1951 the aircraft was accepted for production. It was estimated that with the same engine as the MiG-15's, the MiG-17's maximum speed is higher by 40-50 km/h, and the fighter has greater manoeuvrability at high altitude.

Serial production started in August 1951. During production, the aircraft was improved and modified several times. The basic MiG-17 was a general-purpose day fighter, armed with three cannon

Autocannon

File:Autocannon MLG27.jpgAn autocannon is a rapid fire projectile weapon. Autocannon often have a larger caliber than a machine gun , but there is no maximum or minimum caliber that makes a weapon an autocannon....
s. It could also act as a fighter-bomber, but its bomb

Bomb

A bomb is any of a range of explosive devices that typically rely on the exothermic chemical reaction of an explosive material to produce an extremely sudden and violent release of energy....
load was considered light relative to other aircraft of the time, and it usually carried additional fuel tanks instead of bombs.

The second prototype variant, "SP-2", was an interceptor

Interceptor aircraft

An interceptor aircraft is a type of fighter aircraft designed specifically to intercept and destroy enemy aircraft, particularly bomber aircraft, usually relying on great speed....
equipped with a radar

Radar

Radar is a system that uses electromagnetic radiation waves to identify the range, altitude, direction, or speed of both moving and fixed objects such as aircraft, ships, motor vehicles, weather formations, and terrain....
. Soon a number of MiG-17P all-weather fighters were produced with the Izumrud radar and front air intake modifications. In the spring of 1953 the MiG-17F day fighter entered production. Fitted with the VK-1F engine with an afterburner

AfterBurner

The AfterBurner is a lighting solution for the Game Boy Advance system that was created by Triton-Labs.Originally, portablemonopoly.net was a website created to petition Nintendo to put some kind of light in their Game Boy Advance system....
, which improved its performance, it became the most popular variant of the MiG-17. The next mass-produced variant with afterburner and radar was the MiG-17PF. In 1956 a small series (47 aircraft) was converted to the MiG-17PM standard (also known as PFU) with four first-generation Kaliningrad K-5

Kaliningrad K-5

The Kaliningrad K-5 , also known as RS-1U or product ShM, was an early Soviet air-to-air missile....
(NATO reporting name

NATO reporting name

NATO reporting names are unclassified code names for military equipment of the Eastern Bloc . They provide unambiguous and easily understood English language words in a uniform manner in place of the original designations ? which may have been unknown at the time or easily confused codes....
AA-1 'Alkali') air-to-air missile

Air-to-air missile

An air-to-air missile is a guided missile fired from an aircraft for the purpose of destroying another aircraft. AAMs are typically powered by one or more rocket motors, usually solid-fuel rocket but sometimes liquid-fuel rocket....
s. A small series of MiG-17R reconnaissance aircraft were built with VK-1F engine (after first being tested with the VK-5F engine).

Several thousand MiG-17s were built in the USSR by 1958.

Design

Day-fighter variants (MiG-17, MiG-17F) were armed with two NR-23 23 mm cannons (80 rounds each) and one N-37

Nudelman N-37

The N-37 was a powerful, 37 mm aircraft cannon used by the Soviet Union. It was designed by A.E. Nudelman to replace the wartime Nudelman-Suranov NS-37, entering service in 1946....
37 mm cannon (40 rounds), which were mounted on a common bed under the central air intake. The gun bed could be easily wound down for maintenance. On radar-equipped variants (MiG-17P, MiG-17PF), the N-37 37 mm cannon was replaced with a third NR-23 23 mm cannon (carrying 100 rounds each) to compensate for the weight aft of the radar. All variants could carry 100 kg bombs on two underwing pylons and some could carry 250 kg bombs; however, these pylons were usually used for 400l fuel tanks. The MiG-17R was armed with two 23 mm cannons. Most MiG-17s in third world service today fly as ground attack or trainer aircraft.

The only variant with air-to-air missiles was the MiG-17PM (or MiG-17PFU), which could carry four K-5

Kaliningrad K-5

The Kaliningrad K-5 , also known as RS-1U or product ShM, was an early Soviet air-to-air missile....
(NATO: AA-1 "Alkali"). It had no cannons. Some countries occasionally modified their MiG-17s to carry unguided rockets or bombs on additional pylons. MiG-17s in Cuba could be armed with AA-2 "Atoll" missiles.

The MiG-17P was equipped with the Izumrud-1 (RP-1) radar, while the MiG-17PF was initially fitted with the RP-1 which was later replaced with the Izumrud-5 (RP-5) radar. The MiG-17PM was also equipped with a radar, used to aim its missiles. Other variants had no radar.

Licence production

In 1955, Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian Enclave and exclave, to the north....
received a license for MiG-17 production. The MiG-17F was produced by the WSK-Mielec

PZL-Mielec

PZL Mielec , formerly WSK-Mielec and WSK "PZL-Mielec" is the Poland aerospace manufacturer, based in Mielec. It has been the biggest Polish post-war aerospace manufacturer....
factory under the designation Lim-5. The first Lim-5 was built on 28 November 1956 and 477 were built by 1960. An unknown number were built as the Lim-5R reconnaissance

Reconnaissance

Reconnaissance is a military and medical term denoting exploration conducted to gain information. Militarily, its shorthand Australian, Canadian, and British form is recce , its American usage form is recon ....
variant, fitted with the AFA-39 camera. In 1959-1960, 129 MiG-17PF interceptors were produced as the Lim-5P. PZL-WSK also developed several Polish attack plane variants based on the MiG-17: the Lim-5M, produced from 1960; Lim-6bis, produced from 1963; and Lim-6M (converted in the 1970s); as well as two reconnaissance variants: the Lim-6R (Lim-6bisR) and MR.

In China

People's Republic of China

The People's Republic of China , commonly known as China, is the largest country in East Asia and the List of countries by population in the world with over 1.3 billion people, approximately a fifth of the world's population....
, an initial MiG-17F was assembled from parts in 1956, with license production following in 1957 at Shenyang

Shenyang

Shenyang , or Mukden , is a sub-provincial city and capital city of Liaoning Provinces of China in Northeast China.Along with its nearby cities, Shenyang is an important industrial center in China, and the transportation and commercial centre of China's northeastern region....
. The Chinese-built version is known as the Shenyang J-5
Shenyang J-5

The Shenyang J-5 is a People's Republic of China-built single-seat jet interceptor and fighter aircraft derived from the Soviet Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17....
(for local use) or F-5 (for export). According to some sources, earlier MiG-17s which had been delivered directly from the USSR were designated "J-4". From 1964, the Chinese produced a radar-equipped variant similar to the MiG-17PF, which was known as the J-5A (F-5A). The Chinese also developed a two-seat trainer

Trainer (aircraft)

A trainer is an aircraft used to develop piloting, navigational or war-fighting skills in flight crew.Civilian pilots are normally trained in a light aircraft, with 2 or more seats to allow for student and instructor....
variant, the JJ-5 (FT-5 for export), which integrated the cabin of the JJ-2 (a license-built MiG-15UTI

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15

The Mikoyan MiG-15 was a jet aircraft fighter aircraft developed for the Soviet Union by Artem Mikoyan and Mikhail Gurevich. The MiG-15 was one of the first successful swept wing jet fighters, and it achieved fame in the skies over Korea, where early in the war, it outclassed all enemy fighters....
) with the J-5. It was produced in 1966-1986, being the last-produced MiG-17 variant and its only twin-seater variant. The Soviets did not produce a two-seat MiG-17 as they felt that the training variant of the older MiG-15 was sufficient.

Many Soviet and licence-built examples remain in service to this day, though not all are currently active, making the MiG-17 one of the longest serving fighters ever built.

Operational history

The strategic purpose of this, and most other Soviet fighters, was to shoot down US bombers, not engage in dogfights. This subsonic (.93 Mach) fighter was effective against slower (.6-.8 Mach), heavily loaded US fighter-bombers, as well as the mainstay American strategic bombers during the MiG-17's development cycle (such as the B-50

B-50 Superfortress

The Boeing B-50 Superfortress was a post-World War II revision of the wartime United States B-29 Superfortress with larger Pratt & Whitney R-4360 radial engines, a taller vertical stabilizer, and other improvements....
or B-36

Convair B-36

The Convair B-36 was a strategic bomber built by Convair and operated solely by the United States Air Force . The B-36 was the largest mass-produced piston engined aircraft ever made and had the largest wingspan in a combat aircraft ever built , although there have been larger military transports....
, which were both still powered by piston engines). Even if the target had sufficient warning and time to shed weight and drag by dropping external ordnance and accelerate to supersonic escape speeds, doing so would have inherently forced the enemy aircraft to abort its bombing mission. By the time the USAF introduced strategic bombers capable of cruising at supersonic speeds such as the B-58 Hustler

B-58 Hustler

The Convair B-58 Hustler was the first operational jet bomber capable of Mach 2 supersonic flight. The aircraft was developed for the United States Air Force for service in the Strategic Air Command during the late 1950s....
and FB-111

General Dynamics F-111

The General Dynamics F-111 is a medium-range interdictor and fighter bomber aircraft that also fills the roles of strategic bomber, reconnaissance and electronic warfare in its various versions....
, however, the MiG-17 became obsolete in PVO service and was supplanted by supersonic interceptors such as the MiG-21

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23

The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 is a swing-wing fighter aircraft, designed by the Mikoyan bureau in the Soviet Union and is considered to belong to the "Third Generation" aircraft category along with similar-aged Russian-produced fighters like the MiG-25 "Foxbat"....
.

Twenty countries flew MiG-17s. The MiG-17 became a standard fighter in all Warsaw Pact

Warsaw Pact

The Warsaw Pact was an organization of communist states in Central Europe and Eastern Europe. The treaty was signed in Warsaw, Poland on May 14, 1955 and official copies were made in Russian language, Polish language, Czech language and German language....
countries in the late 1950s and early 1960s. They were also bought by many other countries, mainly in Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km? including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area....
and Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent. It covers 8.6% of the Earth's total surface area and, with over 4 billion people, it contains more than 60% of the world's current human population....
, that were neutrally aligned or allied with the USSR. The MiG-17 flies today in several of these nations air forces. Including Angola, Mali, Mozambique, North Korea, Sudan, and Tanzenia.

MiG-17s were not available for the Korean War

Korean War

The Korean War refers to a period of military conflict between North Korea and South Korea regimes, with major hostilities lasting from June 25, 1950 until the armistice signed on July 27, 1953....
, but saw combat for the first time over the Straits of Taiwan when PRC MiG-17s clashed with ROC

ROC

The word Roc may refer to:*Roc , a mythical giant bird*Roc , an American television sitcom starring Charles S. Dutton which aired 1991 – 1994...
F-86 Sabres in 1958. The MiG-17 was the primary interceptor of the fledgling Vietnam People's Air Force

Vietnam People's Air Force

Vietnamese People's Air Force or Kh?ng Qu?n Nh?n D?n Vi?t Nam is the air force of Vietnam. It was the successor of the North Vietnamese Air Force and absorbed the Vietnam Air Force following the re-unification of Vietnam in 1975....
in 1965 and scored its first victories and saw considerable action during the Vietnam War

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina Wars, the Vietnam Conflict, or often in Vietnam the American War occurred in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia from 1959 to April 30, 1975....
, when they frequently worked in conjunction with MiG-21

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21

The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 is a supersonic jet fighter aircraft, designed and built by the Mikoyan Design Bureau in the Soviet Union. It was popularly nicknamed "balalaika", from the aircraft's planform-view resemblance to the Balalaika or ol?wek by Polish pilots due to the shape of its fuselage....
s and MiG-19s. Some North Vietnamese pilots, in fact, preferred the MiG-17 over the MiG-21; it was more agile, though not as fast.

The American fighter community was shocked in 1965 when elderly, subsonic MiG-17s downed sophisticated Mach-2

Mach number

Mach number is the speed of an object moving through air, or any fluid substance, divided by the speed of sound as it is in that substance. It is commonly used to represent an object's speed, when it is travelling at the speed of sound....
-class F-105 Thunderchief

F-105 Thunderchief

The Republic Aviation Company F-105 Thunderchief, was a supersonic fighter-bomber used by the United States Air Force. The Mach 2 capable F-105 bore the brunt of strike bombing over North Vietnam during the early years of the Vietnam War....
fighter-bombers over North Vietnam. To redress disappointing combat performance against smaller, more agile fighters like the MiGs, the Americans established dissimilar air combat training

Dissimilar air combat training

Dissimilar air combat training was introduced as a formal part of US air combat training after disappointing aerial combat exchange rates in the Vietnam War....
(DACT) in training programs such as "TOPGUN"

United States Navy Fighter Weapons School

TOPGUN is the popular name of the United States Navy Strike Fighter Tactics Instructor program. SFTI is the modern-day evolution of the United States Navy Fighter Weapons School and carries out the same specialized fighter training as NFWS had from 1969 until 1996, when it was merged into the Naval Strike and Air Warfare Cente...
, which employed subsonic A-4 Skyhawk

A-4 Skyhawk

The Douglas A-4 Skyhawk is a aircraft carrier ground-attack aircraft designed for the United States Navy and U.S. Marine Corps. The delta winged "Skyhawk", powered by a single turbojet was designed and produced by Douglas Aircraft Company ....
aircraft to mimic more manoeuvrable opponents such as the MiG-17. The US Navy also set Adversary squadrons equipped with the nimble A-4 at each of its fighter and attack Master jet bases to provide DACT.

At least 24 of them served with the Nigerian Air Force

Nigerian Air Force

The Nigerian Air Force is the air arm of the Nigerian Military of Nigeria.It is one of the largest in West Africa, consisting of 100+ fighter aircraft including SEPECAT Jaguars, Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21s, and Dassault-Dornier Alpha Jets, and a handful of Russian made bombers and military transport aircraft....
and were flown by a mixed group of Nigerian and mercenary

Mercenary

A mercenary is a person who takes part in an armed conflict, who is not a national or a party to the conflict, and is "motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or p...
pilots from East Germany, Russia

Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
, South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa, also known by Official names of South Africa, is a country located at the southern tip of the continent of Africa....
, the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
, and Australia

Australia

Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the southern hemisphere comprising the Australia of the world's smallest continent, the major island of Tasmania, and numerous list of islands of Australia in the Indian Ocean and Pacific Oceans....
during the 1967-70 Nigerian Civil War

Nigerian Civil War

The Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Nigerian-Biafran War, 6 July 1967 – 15 January 1970, was a political conflict caused by the attempted secession of the southeastern provinces of Nigeria as the self-proclaimed Biafra....
. Four were hurriedly supplied by the USSR to Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is an island country in South Asia, located about off the southern coast of India....
during the 1971 insurgency and were used for bombing and ground attack in that conflict.

Variants

I-300

Prototype.

MiG-17 (Fresco-A)

Basic fighter version powered by VK-1 engine ("aircraft SI").

MiG-17A

Fighter version powered by VK-1A engine with longer lifespan.

MiG-17AS

Multirole conversion, fitted to carry unguided rockets and the K-13 air to air missile.

MiG-17P (Fresco-B)

All-weather fighter version equipped with Izumrud radar ("aircraft SP").

MiG-17F (Fresco-C)

Basic fighter version powered by VK-1F engine with afterburner ("aircraft SF").

MiG-17PF (Fresco-D)

All-weather fighter version equipped with Izumrud radar and VK-1F engine ("aircraft SP-7F").

MiG-17PM/PFU (Fresco-E)

Fighter version equipped with radar and K-5

Kaliningrad K-5

The Kaliningrad K-5 , also known as RS-1U or product ShM, was an early Soviet air-to-air missile....
(NATO: AA-1 'Alkali') air-to-air missiles ("aircraft SP-9").

MiG-17R

Reconnaissance aircraft with VK-1F engine and camera ("aircraft SR-2s")

MiG-17SN

Experimental variant with twin side intakes, no central intake, and nose redesigned to allow 23 mm cannons to pivot to engage ground targets. Not produced.

Shenyang J-5

The Shenyang J-5 is a People's Republic of China-built single-seat jet interceptor and fighter aircraft derived from the Soviet Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17....

Some withdrawn aircraft were converted to remotely controlled targets.

Operators

Afghan Air Force

The Afghan National Army Air Corps is a service branch of the Military of Afghanistan, which is responsible for air defense and air warfare. It was established in 1924, but by the 1990s it reduced to a very small force while the country was torn by civil war....
. Around 100 MiG-17F acquired by the Afghan Air Force from 1957.

Albanian Air Force

The Albanian Air Force is the national Air Force of the Military of Albania. Currently it operates under the Albanian Joint Forces Command and it is regrouped in the Albanian Air Brigade....
- 20 aircraft, including 8 Chinese-made JJ-5 trainers, were acquired. All Albanian fighters are in storage, retired from active service, awaiting disposal or scrapping.

Algerian Air Force

The Algerian Air Force is the aerial arm of the Military of Algeria....

MiG-17 in service.

Bangladeshi Air Force

Bulgarian Air Force

The Bulgarian Air Force is a branch of the Bulgarian Army, the other two being the Bulgarian Navy and Bulgarian land forces. Its mission is to guard and protect the sovereignty of Bulgarian airspace, to provide aerial support and to assist the Land Forces in case of war....

Cambodian Air Force - possibly in storage

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17

Development

Design

Licence production

Operational history

Variants

Operators

Specifications (MiG-17F)

See also

Bibliography

External links