| Country of Origin | CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States). |
|---|---|
| Similar Aircraft | MiG-19 Farmer, G.91Y, Su-17 Fitter, MiG-21 Fishbed. |
| Crew | One. |
| Role | Fighter-bomber. |
| Armament | Three 23-mm cannons, bombs, rockets. |
| Dimensions | Length: 36 ft, 5 in (11.1 m). Span: 31 ft, 7 in (9.64 m). |
MiG-17 Fresco WEFT Description
| Wings | Mid-mounted, swept-back, and tapered with blunt tips. Wide wing roots. |
|---|---|
| Engine(s) | One turbojet inside the body, round air intake in the nose. Single, small exhaust. |
| Fuselage | Short, thick, cigar-shaped, tapered to the rear. Blunt nose and bubble canopy. |
| Tail | Fin is swept-back and tapered with rounded tip. Flats are high-mounted on the tail fin, swept-back, and tapered. Flats and fin overhang the exhaust. |
Countries which Fly the MiG-17 Fresco
Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Angola, Congo, Cuba, Ethiopia, Guinea Republic, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, Mali, Mongolia, North Korea, (J-5), North Yemen, People’s Republic of China (J-5), Romania, Sri Lanka, Somalia, South Yemen, Sudan, Tanzania, Vietnam.
Books on the MiG-17 Fresco
Mikoyan-Gurevich Mig-17: The Soviet Union’s Jet Fighter of the Fifties
During the 1950s, the Soviet Union produced and used around 9,000 MiG-17s. First flown in January 1950, it is an extensively upgraded MiG-15 with a redesigned scimitar wing and lengthened fuselage, and known to NATO as “Fresco.” The type was built under various designations including the Polish Lim-5P and Lim-6bis and the Czech S-105, and served not only with the Soviet armed forces but with the military in other Warsaw Pact nations, and further afield including Afghanistan, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Morocco, North Korea, North Vietnam, and Syria. The Chinese built the MiG-17 as the Shenyang F-4.
MiG 17 and MiG 19 Units of the Vietnam War
The erstwhile enemy of the USAF and US Navy during the nine years of American involvement in the Vietnam War, the Vietnamese Peoples’ Air Force (VPAF) quickly grew from an ill-organised rabble of poorly trained pilots flying antiquated communist aircraft into a highly effective fighting force that more than held its own over the skies of North Vietnam. Flying Soviet fighters like the MiG-17, and -19, the VPAF produced over a dozen aces, whilst the Americans managed just two pilots and three navigators in the same period.