The Soviet MiG-17 escaped death when an American missile hit its tail

Hitting the MiG-17, Taiwan ‘gifted’ American missiles to the Soviet Union

The K-13 missile was copied by the Soviet Union from the American AIM-9B.

During the Taiwan Strait crisis in 1958, the US-equipped F-86 Saber fighters on the island of Taiwan had the only advantage of the advanced AIM-9B Sidewinder air-to-air missile when confronted with MiGs

During the air clash on September 28, 1958, Taiwanese F-86 fighters locked targets on a MiG-17 donated to China by the Soviet Union, then launched an AIM-9B missile.

The missile crashed directly into the MiG-17 fighter but did not explode, allowing the pilot to return to base safely with the missile intact in its tail.

Chinese ground technicians successfully removed the AIM-9B missile from the tail of the MiG-17 fighter, but the country’s air force did not know what to do with that unique trophy.

AIM-9B missiles are equipped by the US for Taiwanese F-86 fighters.

Armed with this information, the Soviet Union sought to persuade China to hand over that precious AIM-9B missile.

`The Sidewinder rocket is like a university, providing us with manufacturing technology. It also helps us upgrade technical teaching materials and change the way rockets are produced in the future,` Gennadiy Sokolovskiy,

The AIM-9B missile has a series of valuable features, such as a modular design that allows for simplified production and operation.

The AIM-9B’s infrared detector uses a freestanding gyroscope with a much smaller size than similar Soviet products.

The Soviet Union quickly copied the AIM-9B model, creating the K-13 surface-to-air missile line (NATO designation: AA-2 Atoll) and put it into service in 1960. Two years later, the improved version K

Model K-13 has the same shape and size as the AIM-9B.

The K-13 versions are identical in size and shape to the AIM-9B missile, with a diameter of 127 mm and a range of one kilometer.

The Soviet Union then began developing more modern close-range air-to-air missiles such as the R-60 and R-73, which have many superior features than contemporaneous American and Western weapons.

Tu Quynh