Last Dance of the Fishbed
By 
The most numerous supersonic jet ever built is reaching the end of its days…
On September 26, India will retire its last squadrons of MiG-21 fighter jets. Indian pilots have been flying the MiG-21 (NATO callsign: Fishbed) since 1963, and the airframe has served in every war waged by India since that date.
The retirement marks a significant milestone in the decline of the iconic Cold War fighter, as India was the last considerable aerospace power to operate substantial numbers of the aircraft.
The first MiG-21 prototype flew in 1955. Serial production began in 1959 and continued until 1986. In all, nearly 12,000 Fishbeds were built in the Soviet Union and under license in India and Czechoslovakia.
For its part, China contributed approximately 2,400 aircraft under licensed production as the J-7 variant. The first J-7 rolled off the production line in 1965, and the last one was produced in 2013.
The Fishbed will probably make it to its 70th birthday (2029) in the service of some third rate air force somewhere, but the end is near. For what it’s worth, it looks as if the two remaining countries to fly the F-4 Phantom are Greece and Iran… although those in the latter may not have survived the Twelve Day War. A fair number of MiG-23s are still about. The MiG-25 is evidently no longer in service anywhere.
Photo Credit: By kitmasterbloke – https://www.flickr.com/photos/58415659@N00/54428075868/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=163175152