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The aircraft type was officially named MiG-1 in December 1940; this
name was already unofficially used in the factory to design the aircraft,
that was still named I-200.
It is not clear if all the aircrafts were at this point equipped with
the rearward-sliding canopy, or if some of them had still a hinged canopy
as with the prototypes.
By the end of 1940, all 100 MiG-1s were built, and the first 20 of
them were delivered to the VVS within the year, with the rest delivered
in early 1941. The first operative units to receive the new aircraft
were 31st IAP at Kaunas Air Base, in Lithuania, and 41th IAP at Belostok
Air Base, in Soviet-occupied Poland.
It was necessary to conduct tests of series I-200 under operative conditions.
During the period from December 1940 to February 1941, pilots and ground
crew of 41th IAP conducted operative tests at the Kachinskeye Military
School for Pilots. The supervision was by the test pilot Suprun.
Before these tests, the retraining of crew was taken in charge by NII
VVS, that started with the pilots of 146th IAP.
Pre-war photos of series MiG-1 are exceedingly rare, if any exist at
all. I don't know any. Sadly, all the few photos available of this type
are of German origin, and represent wrecked or captured aircrafts. Even
photos of captured aircrafts usually show airframes that have been vandalized
by souvenir-hunting Germans.
from Barbarossa victims |
This photo of an operational MiG-1 captured by Germans show the shorter
radiator and the different undercarriage covers from the MiG-3.
Perhaps one can notice the slightly shorter nose too, with exhaust stacks slightly overposed to the panel behind them, but in all other respects (sliding canopy etc.) this aircraft resembles an early MiG-3. Note the small red star with black outline on the fuselage. A piece of fabric has been removed from the rudder by some souvenir hunter; it possibly had a 7 painted on it. It seems to be a man sitting in the shadow, partially covering the main undercarriage. |
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These photos show many operational MiG-1s captured by Germans; they
belonged to 31 IAP based at Kaunas air base.
Another unit to receive MiG-1 was 41 IAP based on the former Polish airport of Bialystok. Large numbers of MiGs were captured because most Soviet pilots were not fully comfortable or trusting of the new MiG’s tricky flight characteristics,, and preferred to evacuate the airfields or combat flying older types, such as I-153 and I-16. One example bears the yellow number 5 on the rudder, while another has
a red 6 with white outline; many examples appear without any number; not
all of them are positively identified as MiG-1.
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This photo represents an example captured by Germans and exposed probably
in Berlin during 1942 as a part of a propaganda exhibition called "Russenparadies".
This exhibition was bombed by German communists, under the leadership of Bruno Baum. The example was captured in near flyable condition in the first days of war. In the photo it appears lacking of some small panels and with its tyres low on air, and apparently not in flying conditions.
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