MiG-21F-13 - Syria - 1967
Six Days War (1967)

My topic is the MiG-21F-13 number 2540 of the SyAAF as (probably) seen in June 1967 during the Six Day War.

On the 5th of June 1967, only the Syrian Army was mobilised and ready for action while the SyAAF was neither mobilised nor put on alert. Furthermore, al-Assad dictated that the Air Force should be conserved and held back for home defence. Hours before the Six Day War started, the SyAAF had 3 Squadrons operating MiG-21s, possesing 42 aircraft in total (34 operational): out of the 3 Squadrons, two were equipped with the MiG-21F-13s (No. 5 Sq. - Dmeyr and No. 9 Sq. - Tiyas/T4) and one with the newer FLs.

Nevertheless, the morale of the SyAAF was very high prior to the 5th of June 1967 with pilots having gained combat experience during several earlier skirmishes with the IDF. Interviews and extensive research found in "Arab Migs, Volume 3" by Tom Cooper and David Nicolle are revealing a very different picture of how the SyAAF performed during the Six Day War. Contrary to the Western perception along the past decades, the SyAAF was by no means destroyed in the first days of the war, since the already prepared plan of evacuating the SyAAF jets to the more northers AFB was applied in the right moment (presumably outside IDF reach) after the first Israeli attacks against Syrian air bases. The surviving aircraft could later be scrambeled for close air support or defending the military targets close to the Israeli border.

Intense dogfights occured between the IDF and SyAAF, with the SyAAF presumably achieving something like a positive score in air combats (not counting ground losses), according to "Arab Migs, Volume 3". Unlike stated in older publications or various color profiles, the SyAAF MiG-21s did not have any camouflage painting in 1967. The Syrian MiG-21s were left in their so called natural metal finish with still no roundel applied on the fuselage from the very beginning.

Regarding the applied insignia, the SyAAF had returned in 1961 once more to the green contour instead of the red contour for both the fin flash and roundels. These markings were maintained until 1963 and coincided with the deliveries of the MiG-21F-13s. Although the insignia changed again after 1963 (back to the red contour but with only 2 green stars), numerous literature sources are mentioning that some SyAAF still carried the old green insignia as late as the Six Day War. Therefore, my educated guess was that some MiG-21F-13s maybe had flown in the Six Day War with the older insignia. Unfortunately for my plan, even more recent evidence is showing rather the contrary.

The "Arab MiGs Volume 2" or the freshly released "MiGs in the Middle East, Volume 2" of Tom Cooper and co-authors (books which I didn't have at the time of building this model) are showing several color profiles of Syrian MiG-21F-13s, some of them having the air intakes painted red, red rudders and even red wing tips similar to the contemporany Syrian MiG-17s as of the UAC identification directive. All of the Syrian MiG-21F-13s depicted there already had the new insignia with the red contour, therefore it's rather unlikely that any of the not so numerous Syrian MiG-21F-13s have flown in the Six Day War with the green insignia.

With other words, my model rather depicts how a Syrian MiG-21F-13 looked like in 1963-1964 and probably not how it looked like in the Six Day War (as I initially planed), but I think I can live with that for now.

Among many other consequences of the Six Day War, all Egyptian and Syrian military aircraft received camouflage painting immediately after June 1967 (see for example my other Egyptian MiG-21F-13 model: MiG-21F-13 - Egypt - 1973 | Album by Redicus (1:72)). The MiG-21F-13 served in the SyAAF until the very late 1970s.