The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 (Russian: Микоян и Гуревич МиГ-21; NATO reporting name: Fishbed) is a supersonic jet fighter and interceptor aircraft, designed by the Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau in the Soviet Union. Its nicknames include: "balalaika", because its planform resembles the stringed musical instrument of the same name; "Ołówek", Polish for "pencil", due to the shape of its fuselage,^[2] and "Én Bạc", meaning "silver swallow", in Vietnamese.


MiG-21bis (1972; Izdeliye 75; NATO "Fishbed-L/N"The ultimate development of the MiG-21, fitted with the Tumanskiy R25-300 turbojet engine and a great number of other advances over previous types. Those MiG-21bis for the Soviet PVO (Air Defence Force) were equipped with the Lazur GCI system (NATO: "Fishbed-L"), while those for the Soviet Air Force were fitted with the Polyot ILS system (NATO: "Fishbed-N").

MiG-21bis (Izdeliye 75A; NATO "Fishbed-L")Lazur-equipped version with a slightly different avionics package exported to some Warsaw Pact countries. In Bulgaria and East Germany these were designated



MiG-21bis-Lazur.MiG-21bis (Izdeliye 75B; NATO "Fishbed-N")Polyot-equipped version with a slightly different avionics package exported to some Warsaw Pact countries. In Bulgaria and East Germany these were designated MiG-21bis-SAU (SAU referring to Sistema Avtomaticheskovo Upravleniya = "Automatic Control System"). This variant was manufactured under licence by HAL in India from 1980 to 1987.