The best Soviet fighter of the early 1950s was the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15bis, a remarkable achievement for the Soviet aircraft industry, and a devastating shock to the Americans in the skies over war-torn Korea during late 1 950 and early 1 951. The Americans prevailed over the MiG-15 series with the excellent North American F-86 Sabre, but it was clear that much of this dominance was achieved by US pilot training and the superior equipment of the American fighters. While the MiG-1 5 had a definite performance edge over the F-86 in certain important parameters such as climb and turn rates, it was also found, however, to possess several adverse characteristics such as a tendency to stall and spin in very tight turns, pronounced snaking at Mach numbers in excess of 0.88, and poor handling at high angles of attack. Improved aircraft were already under flight test during the Korean War - namely the MiG-17 and MiG-19 from the same design stable - but the lessons of air combat during the Korean War also showed the need for a new generation of interceptor fighters with high superonic performance. The lessons were there for all to see, the Americans responding with the remarkable Lockheed F-104 Starfigher, a Mach 2 'manned missile' (or, rather, manned missile-launch platform) in which all was sacrificed to speed and rate of climb. The Soviet interpretation of the same lessons produced a radically different requirement, issued in the autumn of 1953.
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