MiG-19S ("Farmer-C") arrived in 1956 with the "Svod" navigation receiver equipment as standard and was armed through 3 x 30mm NR-30 cannons while supporting rocket pods and conventional drop ordnance for light attack functionality. Performance included a maximum speed of 902 miles per hour, a ferry range out to 1,370 miles and a service ceiling up to 58,700 feet. Rate-of-climb was listed at 35,000 feet per minute - making it a useful and deadly interceptor.
MiG-19SF was the MiG-19S with RD-9BF-1 turbojet engines and MiG-19SV, appearing in 1956, was a high-altitude "balloon-busting" development designed to reach up to 70,000 feet. MiG-19SMK were a pair of test aircraft used in evaluating performance of the K-10S series cruise missile and MiG-19SVK was given an all-new wing mainplane design which improved performance slightly - but not enough to warrant full-scale production.
Another high-altitude form to come along was MiG-19SU and this model served to counter the threat posed by the American Lockheed U-2 spyplane. The spyplane was a regular offender above the Soviet Union and, until Soviet air defense missiles and radar could catch up to the high-flying aircraft, interceptors were the call of the day. To allow for quick response times and acceptable time-to-altitude, the MiG-19SU carried rocket boosters for added propulsion. However the design shown too many issues during testing that the effort fell to naught. The Gary Powers U-2 incident of 1960 eventually curtailed American incursions over Soviet airspace - the U-2 aircraft was caught by a SA-2 "Guideline" Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM) system and led to Powers' capture.
By the end of their useful service lives, MiG-19s were expended as target drones under the MiG-19M designaton.
The MiG-19 was also produced under license by several foreign powers. This included Czechoslovakia with its Avia S-105 based largely on the MiG-19S). China produced the MiG-19 as the Shenyang J-6/JJ-6 which marked a single-seat fighter and twin-seat trainer respectively. The J-6 was sold to Pakistan as the "F-6" and updated to carry Western ordnance by customer request. The Nanchang Q-5, another Chinese-originated MiG-19 development, was developed along the lines of a dedicated ground-attack fighter complete with whole nosecone assembly and side-mounted intakes for engine aspiration - about 1,300 of these aircraft were delivered. Poland also opened local lines to strengthen MiG-19 numbers even more, the aircraft serving through both its Air Force and Navy services.
As can be expected, global operators of the MiG-19 proved plenty, ranging from Afghanistan and Albania to Vietnam and Zambia. Total production netted 2,172 examples by Mikoyan-Gurevich alone and more were added through foreign manufacture. The line was beginning to be phased out as soon as the early 1960s for the MiG-21 "Fishbed" was coming online in number. The Fishbed continued the long, storied line of Mikoyan-Gurevich jet-powered fighters that began in the post-World War 2 period and this form numbered 11,496 in total production. Service entry came in 1959 with the MiG-21F model and the line introduced a slew of advancements over its swept-wing predecessors. The MiG-21 retained the nose-mounted intake seen in earlier MiG fighters but installed a shockcone for high-speed, high-performance flight and its fuselage took on a deeper, stouter appearance. Sixty countries went on to deploy it (some continuing to do so today - 2015) and straight-line performance reached Mach 2.0 through its single Tumansky R25 engine with afterburner.
MiG-19s still equip some second-rate air services of the world while other customers have retired (or sold off) their stock in favor of more modern solutions like the MiG-29 "Fulcrum" series or the dependable MiG-21 Fishbed line. In either case, the fighting peak of the MiG-19 is clearly behind it.
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