The Little World

Along with my reputation, which is also a tarnished relic. I don’t mind – it saves a lot of fussiness.

The real Mig 21 that was pinched got a thorough working analysis from the IAF before being consigned to Hatzerim. It wore several liveries after the Syrian brown camo was scraped off – some of them quite plain. But in the end it was given a paint scheme very like the one you see on 006.

It is garish and loud but if you were using the plane as an operational one for intruder training you had to make it visible before your pilots ran into it and very, very, different from the Migs that the Syrians would be still flying and would dearly have loved to shoot you down with.

The only time you could get away with quasi-authentic intruder paint jobs for your trainers is if you fly a continent away from the real ones – ie. intruder trainers for the USAF or RCAF can sport quasi Russian, Chinese, or North Korean schemes when they are flying above Texas or Alberta but they probably wouldn’t use Cuban colouring in the same place. Too close.

Mind you, there would be a constant IFF electronic beacon from the intruder that the practising student interceptor would be blocked from using – but every other plane would know about. No sense busting up the expensive aircraft in training crashes!

The canopy of 006 is coated with anti-oxidation plastic film – hence the unnatural blue hue. If they ever decide to fire the old thing up they’ll just strip it off and wash the perspex with meths. But who’s going to be fool enough to try to fly it?