MiG-15 UTI manuals

[MiTasol]

The first of several - all in English - as supplied to English speaking nations that bought the aircraft.

This one is missing a couple of pages from the Table of Contents.

EDIT Don't download this at present - I am going to create and add the missing ToC pages and add some colour pages that are black and white in this copy.
Expect it in about a week as I have to clean up the colour pages.

Changes
Diagram 90 was missing and I have tracked a copy down (in Russian) and Wurger generously provided a translation of the caption.
I compiled the missing third page of the Table of Contents
I added page numbers to each page - the originals were numbered in the outside corner of each page and most missing/partial in my photocopy - probably when it was photocopied from A4 on Letter size paper - and my PDF software does not provide that page numbering option
I faked up the cover using another manual of the period as the template - apparently ОБОРОНГИЗ is Oborongis in English and they are/were a Technical publisher in Moscow. The date was a guess from when the original aircraft were being exported and at least one Russian MiG-15 manual was published by Oborongis with that date.

 

[Wurger]

 

[MiTasol]

This one is butchered and a mix of the first manual and at least one other as there are two chapter VI and there two more front diagrams and the captions on the same two are different. Those lines on the left are the edge of cut and pasted sections from the manuals. If you look you will often also see words that are cut in half. I have removed the vertical lines from the scans for ease of reading. There were also some parts from the electrical manual but I will post them separately.

I suspect this was a draft for a pilots engineering manual. Many remaining paragraphs have been marked for future deletion.

 

[MiTasol]

Plan A was that the Mig-15 UTI Flight Characteristics would be next manual but my scanner spat the dummy - the new one is supposed to arrive tomorrow. Probably a few days to get it set up and learn the new software.

In the meantime I have retyped the readable parts of a translated Polish Air Force manual that covers:

a) Two seater aircraft for training are called, UTIMiG-15 SBLIM- SBLim-1 SBLim-2M​

b) Two seater aircraft for reconnaissance, SBLim-1A SBLim-2A​

c) Single seater recon aircraft, Lim-2R Lim-SR Lim-OR​

d) Single seater aircraft/fighters & close support, Lim-6bis Lim-6M​

e) Single seater aircraft/fighters. Lim-2 Lim-5 Lim-5P​

​

(Lim-5 = MiG-17F) I have left the wording as supplied to me.​

​

I have left the full Table of Contents to show what I cannot reproduce at present but greyed out the missing sections. Some of the pages are actually missing and much is unreadable due to the type and age of photocopy. All diagrams are missing/ not copy-able .

 

[Wurger]

 

[MIflyer]

Thanks for the manuals. A few shots taken at Titusville.

 

[MiTasol]

Unloading first shipment - 5 two seat trainers - I do not have many photos left unfortunately and none of the Lim-5 (Mig-17).

 

[MIflyer]

There was a wealthy guy in Santa Barbara CA in the 1980's that bought an F-86 and a Mig-15. His Mig was unusual at the time in that it was not one of the PRC versions that had begun to come in but a Polish built example - he wanted a "real" Mig-15. I went to take pictures of it one Saturday and found it sitting in a pool of water. The area was deserted except for one gentlemen who said they had tried to crank it up and ended up with jet fuel pouring out of it. They hosed it down and then went to lunch. So I was able to climb all over the airplane and take lots of pictures. Unfortunately those shots are all on 35MM slides and and I do not have a way to transfer them to digital.

They have a Mig-17PF up at Titusville. too. Some college kids pooled their money and bought it, then figured out how much it was going to cost to gte it flying and gave it to the museum. A friend of mine who worked for the Smithsonian ASM said he went to Poland in the early 90's on Museum business, and they took him to an airfield that was covered with Migs and said, "Any one you want for $5000 American."

 

[FLYBOYJ]

I got to work on a few MiG-15s over the years, got to fly in one once. If you have the specific tools and slings, super simple to work on.

 

[MIflyer]

The USAF bought a bunch of Mig-15's and had them converted to target drones. Congress passed a law requiring that our weapons be tested against actual adversary hardware; the Mig-15 was better for that than just about anything else, and was more available, too.

 

[SaparotRob]

Can't they shoot down something less historically significant?

 

[FLYBOYJ]

The USAF bought a bunch of Mig-15's and had them converted to target drones. Congress passed a law requiring that our weapons be tested against actual adversary hardware; the Mig-15 was better for that than just about anything else, and was more available, too.

Errrr - you sure about that? I worked on the target drone program for a number of years (from around 1994 - 2002) and never saw or heard about any east block aircraft being used for targets, and this was out of Holloman and Tinker. I know for a fact the full size aircraft mainly used for target drones were QF-86s, QF-100s, QF-4s and a few of QF-106s. Right now older block QF-16s are being used and I believe that Boeing is doing the modification.

I can also tell you that privately owned east block aircraft were used in dis-similar aircraft training and test pilot training on many occasions.

So I'd like to know your source on that!

 

[special ed]

Possibly cover for buying MiGs for Tonopah.

 

[MIflyer]

So I'd like to know your source on that!

1. Air Force O-6 in the Pentagon
2. USAF officer I served with who got a tour of a facility run by a private company that had Mig-15's. Like you, he was told the Mig-15 was simple and easy to operate.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Possibly cover for buying MiGs for Tonopah.

Nope! I know people who were there and I know for a fact none of those aircraft were ever converted into targets.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

1. Air Force O-6 in the Pentagon
2. USAF officer I served with who got a tour of a facility run by a private company that had Mig-15's. Like you, he was told the Mig-15 was simple and easy to operate.

Well I'm going to tell you this O-6 didn't know what he was talking about or got a bum briefing by a 2nd LT! No MiG-15s in the US were ever converted into targets, they would have been spotted at the target ranges and they would have a required a company that had experience doing target conversions to do the mod, and at one time there was only one company doing this - Flight Systems out of Mojave. I worked for them and we never made any target MiG-15s or for that matter, any other MiG.

The MiG-15 or MiG-15UTI would have made a horrible target drone (although I thing China converted some) as it's really squirrely when landing and would have been a handful flying NOLO.

Maybe this O-6 came through Flight Systems, saw the QF-86s and thought they were Migs

 

[special ed]

Nope! I know people who were there and I know for a fact none of those aircraft were ever converted into targets.

I meant they way have gone to the red eagles at TTR.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

I meant they way have gone to the red eagles at TTR.

Got it!!

If I recall there was only one MiG-15 UTI at TTR and I don't think it was there long. IIRC they had a MiG-17, a MiG-21 and several MiG-23s.

 

[MiTasol]

As per post #4 - Mig-15 UTI Flight Characteristics

As far as I can tell the 1953 Russian Language version of this manual only had 20 pages and was called Aircraft performance. I do not know the date of this document

See post 26 - the correct title for the Russian version is probably Aircraft UTI MiG-15, Technical description, book 1, Flight characteristics of the aircraft

 

[MiTasol]

In Post 1 an updated manual replaces original. This has a complete Table of Contents and other changes as noted