Hobby Master, MiG-21, 1:72 Die Cast Model, "5121," flown by Pham Tuan, 921st "Sao Do", December 1972, HA0182

The Mig-21 was originally built by the Mikoyan and Gurevich Design Bureau in the Soviet Union with a NATO nickname Fishbed. No other jet has had as many planes produced as the Mig-21. Depending on the reference source 8,000 - 13,000 planes of all versions were made in the Soviet Union, under license to allied countries and China without license. A small, fast, agile, dependable and most importantly simple making it easy to turn out great numbers of the plane. In the early 1970's the Vietnam People's Air Force 921 Sao Do was equipped with MiG- 21MFs and went on to take part flying against the U.S. "Operation Linebacker". On December 27, 1972 the VPAF claim the MiG-21MF "5121" flown by Pham Tuan shot down a USAF B-52 but this is disputed by the USAF. After the Vietnam War Pham Tuan became the first Vietnam citizen to go into space aboard the Soyuz 37 "Gorbatko". His MiG-21MF "5121" is on display at the Vietnamese Air Force Museum in Hanoi.