MiG-19PM 'Farmer' - KP
- Масштаб:
- 1:72
- Статус:
- Завершённые
- Начатые:
- March 7, 2024
- Завершённые:
- April 6, 2004
The MiG-19 'Farmer' was the first Soviet made supersonic fighter. P stands for "perekhvatchik", meaning "interceptor" and M for "modernizirovannyy", meaning "modernized". The PM-version was equipped with a radar transmitter and receiver in its nose, but had to sacrifice its guns. It's only armament was four RS-2US air-to-air, radar beam riding missiles. These missiles, although looking scary, turned out to have a terribly poor hit rate against a maneuvering target, as the pilot would need to keep the aircraft's four, narrow radar beams constantly focused on the target all the way from launch until impact.
Hungary received twelve MiG-19PM's in 1959 and used them as night time border patrol aircraft until 1973, when they had been successively replaced with the much more modern MiG-21. During this time, three Hungarian MiG-19's were lost, in two cases with fatal outcome. Many of the remaining airframes are now found in various aviation parks in Hungary in more or less scrap metal condition. One however is in lovely condition exhibited in the Szolnok aviation museum that I had a chance to visit a few years ago.