MiG-21 is not designed as a dog fighter. It’s a point defence interceptor designed to blast incoming bombing formations. It just happens to have certain factors that contribute to decent performance.
F-4 dominated over MiG-21 in Israeli-Arab Wars. This included MiG-21s flown by Soviet pilots.
F-16A dominated MiG-21s in Lebanon (even though Syrians claim otherwise but their claims are completely unconfirmed).
Nearly all were WVR combat – early Israeli F-16s were not BVR capable.
Once US got its act together, it’s F-4s were a match for MiG-21. In fact North Vietnamese also got great mileage out of MiG-17.
TVC? We’re approaching realms of fantasy here. What next – F-86 Sabre could be an F-15 killer if fitted with AESA and AMRAAMS?
No-one is lining up to shove up a TVC on a MiG-21.
There’s also things like aerodynamics and structural integrity to take into account. Just cause you have TVC doesn’t mean you’re airframe is set up to do TVC maneouvring.
Best MiG-21 can get is MiG-21 Bison and from memory MiG-21bis isn’t as nimble as some of the earlier models but I could be wrong.
Maybe the Russians would’ve used LERX for the MIG-21? I doubt that they’ll do that they would’ve needed to redesign the airframe all over again. But although its small wing loading they could’ve make the MIG-21 stealthy but as i said they would’ve needed to do the airframe again. The MiG-21 has clearly been produced since 1959 with overall a 11,496 build MiG-21s in Russian history? MiG-21 has had kills.
Iraqi Mig-21 kill record:
1 Iranian F-14 Tomcat
Other Iranian/Kuwait aircrafts?
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