Since 1981 resp. 1985, the designations ‘MiG-13’ (for I-250) [1] and ‘La-13’ (for La-150) [2] circulate in the aviation literature, first in the Soviet Union, now worldwide. They are rarely questioned, but they are both fakes.
The creator of these designations is neither the OKB-155 (= Mikoyan), or OKB-301 (= Lavochkin) nor the MAP (= Soviet Ministry for Aviation Industry), but the former engineer at the Mikoyan OKB I. G. Sultanov (1951 – 1998), starting his new job as a journalist and aviation historian in 1977. We owe him a lot of excellent three-view drawings of Soviet aircraft. But he also claimed many details that come only from his imagination and do not have any basis in historical documents. These include the alleged state designations ‘MiG-13’ and ‘La-13’. One of his masterpieces as draftsman you can see in the superb book on OKB Mikoyan [3], written by Marmain and Belyakov. He even forced his wrong designation ‘MiG-13’ on the former general designer of the OKB and so it has been sanctioned by “highest” authorities.
Thoroughly historians have already pointed out that in the original documents nothing refers to any denomination ‘MiG-13’ [4] or ‘La-13’ [5].
The Mikoyan I-250 was designed long before the I-260 and I-300 (MiG-9). There is a clear contradiction for a state designation ‘MiG-13’.
Kopenhagen [6] found a clue at the Monino museum (before 1978) that designations MiG-11 and MiG-13 were intended for versions of MiG-9. For MiG-11 this fact was confirmed meanwhile by another sources (for example [7]), for MiG-13 this is more likely than the obvious contradiction of Sultanov’s invention.
References:
[1] Kosminkov, K. and I. Sultanov, “I-250 (N) MiG-13,” Krylya Rodiny, 1981, 10, p29.
[2] Perov, V. and I. Sultanov, “La-13,” Krylya Rodiny, 1984, 1, p28.
[3] Belyakov, R. A. and J. Marmain, MiG 1939 – 1989, Docavia Vol. 33, Larivière, Paris, 1991.
[4] Arsenyev, Ye. V., “Pyerwyy reaktivnyy ‘MiG’ (I-250),” Aviatsiya I Vremya, 2001, 3, p4 - 20.
[5] Yakubovich, N. V., Samolyoty S. A. Lavochkina, Rusavia, Moscow, 2002.
[6] Kopenhagen, W., “Monino,” Fliegerjahrbuch 1978, Transpress, Berlin, 1977, p127 – 137.
[7] Arsenyev, Ye., “Samolyoty OKB im. A. I. Mikoyana. MiG-9 (I-301T, TF),“ Aviatsiya i Kosmonavtika 2002, 7, p18 – 25.
The creator of these designations is neither the OKB-155 (= Mikoyan), or OKB-301 (= Lavochkin) nor the MAP (= Soviet Ministry for Aviation Industry), but the former engineer at the Mikoyan OKB I. G. Sultanov (1951 – 1998), starting his new job as a journalist and aviation historian in 1977. We owe him a lot of excellent three-view drawings of Soviet aircraft. But he also claimed many details that come only from his imagination and do not have any basis in historical documents. These include the alleged state designations ‘MiG-13’ and ‘La-13’. One of his masterpieces as draftsman you can see in the superb book on OKB Mikoyan [3], written by Marmain and Belyakov. He even forced his wrong designation ‘MiG-13’ on the former general designer of the OKB and so it has been sanctioned by “highest” authorities.
Thoroughly historians have already pointed out that in the original documents nothing refers to any denomination ‘MiG-13’ [4] or ‘La-13’ [5].
The Mikoyan I-250 was designed long before the I-260 and I-300 (MiG-9). There is a clear contradiction for a state designation ‘MiG-13’.
Kopenhagen [6] found a clue at the Monino museum (before 1978) that designations MiG-11 and MiG-13 were intended for versions of MiG-9. For MiG-11 this fact was confirmed meanwhile by another sources (for example [7]), for MiG-13 this is more likely than the obvious contradiction of Sultanov’s invention.
References:
[1] Kosminkov, K. and I. Sultanov, “I-250 (N) MiG-13,” Krylya Rodiny, 1981, 10, p29.
[2] Perov, V. and I. Sultanov, “La-13,” Krylya Rodiny, 1984, 1, p28.
[3] Belyakov, R. A. and J. Marmain, MiG 1939 – 1989, Docavia Vol. 33, Larivière, Paris, 1991.
[4] Arsenyev, Ye. V., “Pyerwyy reaktivnyy ‘MiG’ (I-250),” Aviatsiya I Vremya, 2001, 3, p4 - 20.
[5] Yakubovich, N. V., Samolyoty S. A. Lavochkina, Rusavia, Moscow, 2002.
[6] Kopenhagen, W., “Monino,” Fliegerjahrbuch 1978, Transpress, Berlin, 1977, p127 – 137.
[7] Arsenyev, Ye., “Samolyoty OKB im. A. I. Mikoyana. MiG-9 (I-301T, TF),“ Aviatsiya i Kosmonavtika 2002, 7, p18 – 25.
