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The abysmal MiG-9 'Fargo'

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The abysmal MiG-9 'Fargo'

The early Soviet jet they didn't want

Hush Kit
Mar 1, 2022
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The abysmal MiG-9 'Fargo'

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Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-9 ‘Unwell Fargo‘

Mig-9 LEM - LSM Work In Progress - Large Scale Modeller
The horrible and extremely ugly MiG-9.

The I-300 had been the first Soviet pure jet to fly, a winning coin toss deciding its place in history in favour of the Yak-15 (which flew later on that same day in 1945). It was a horrible beast to fly, during a flight in 1946 it uncontrollably pitched down, crashed into the ground and killed its test pilot, A.N. Grinchik. He was replaced by the master test pilot Mark Gallai (a kind of Soviet Winkle Brown), who encountered the same pitch-down issue, which snapped one of the tailplanes off and ruptured the main fuel tank. Instead of bailing out, he made a remarkable, and successful, deadstick unpowered landing. Despite its many flaws, the I-300 was commissioned as a fighter, and assigned the designation MiG-9. The MiG-9 was predictably awful. One of its major issues was the engine flame-outs that occurred when the guns were fired at high altitudes. This was a major problem for a fighter. Its top speed of 537mph (slower than the I-300) was not great for a jet fighter, inferior to even the Me 262 clone Avia S-92. Still, it would have been fast enough able to run away from a Sea Fury. Its armament consisted of the hugely destructive Nudelman N-37 37-mm cannon and two Nudelman-Suranov NS-23 23-mm cannon. Though several advanced versions were tested, including one fitted with an afterburner capable of 600mph, they were not pursued. As soon as the superior MiG-15 was on the scene, it soaked up almost all resources available to develop fighter aircraft, starving lesser aircraft like the MiG-9.

(extract from the Top fighters of 1949 here) 


The Hush-Kit Book of Warplanes will feature the finest cuts of Hush-Kit and much more, including a feast of bespoke illustrations, pilot interviews, analysis and top 10s. A brand new illustrated book from the highly acclaimed Hush-kit online magazine. Both volumes are entirely crowd-funded, Vol 1 is fully funded and in the final stages of production and is due out Oct 2022. Vol 2 is now at 35% funding – we’re hoping to minimise the time between volume 1 and 2; the sooner Vol 2 hits 100 funding work can start.

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The abysmal MiG-9 'Fargo'

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1 Comment
Anthony Oliver
Mar 1, 2022

Dastardly and Muttley for the jet age.

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