In Perth, Western Australia, an unusual warbird type is beginning its
journey back into flying condition. A MiG-21UM Fishbed twin seater fighter
jet recently arrived from the USA for restoration in Australia.
Her new owner, Adrian Deeth, is a keen aviation enthusiast, and
had been looking for a suitable warbird type to acquire for some
time. His search ended with the exotic and rarely seen MiG-21.
Deeth found a US-based MiG-21UM project in mid 2012, but it took two
years to move the aircraft to Australia.
Deeth’s Fishbed rolled off the production line in Russia
during 1967 under an Egyptian Air Force contract as serial 5068. The jet
helped train Egyptian pilots for the single seater variant, but even
so has very little flight time with barely 400hrs reportedly in
its log book.
The Egyptians retired 5068 in the late 1980s, and she made her
way to the USA just a few years later. It passed through various owners,
but had settled in Tulsa, Oklahoma, flying on the warbird circuit by 1994.
Registered as N423LZ, the MiG received a new Tumansky R-11F-300 jet engine in
1997, but only put eight more hours on the clock before her reported last
flight in 1998.
http://www.warbirdsnews.com/warbirds-news/mig-21-fishbed-restoration-western-australia.html
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