MiG-21 fighter is a delta-wing aerodynamic layout single-engine fighter in the former Soviet Era, the main task of this type of fighter is high-altitude high-speed interception, the production of MiG-21 fighter is quite large, the total output has exceeded 10,000, and delivered to more than 50 countries around the world for use, the J-7 fighter used by the PLA troops is based on the MiG-21 fighter model for imitation production, but now the J-7 fighter has appeared many improved models, This also includes a significant increase in modernization, but it is clear that many MiG-21 fighters have become seriously old, and countries that currently use MiG-21 fighters have replaced this fighter, romania is one of them.
In March 2022, the MiG-21 fighter had an accident in Romania, which also directly led to the full suspension of the fighter, it is understood that a MiG-21 fighter in Romania died because it caused the death of 8 soldiers, one of the 8 soldiers was the pilot of the MiG-21 fighter, and the other 7 were search and rescue helicopter crew members who went to the scene for search and rescue, at that time, due to bad weather conditions, the helicopter crashed soon after arriving at the scene of the accident. Even the pilots of the crashed plane were not able to rescue them. Romania already believed that the Failure Rate of the MiG-21 fighter jet was too high to be replaced, and in order to complete the replacement of the war, Romania would first use a batch of second-hand F-16 fighters from Norway as a transition, but eventually sought the purchase of F-35 fighters and completed the replacement.
F-16 fighters have now appeared in the battle sequence of the Romanian Air Force, which began to purchase used F-16 fighters from Portugal in 2016, and this batch of used F-16 fighters also eliminated some of the former Soviet-era MiG-21 fighters, and in the future, they will continue to purchase 32 F-16 fighters from Norway to replace the MiG-21 fighters of the two squadrons. Romania's ultimate goal is to buy F-35 stealth fighters from the United States, F-35 stealth fighters are also the only five-generation aircraft in the world that is currently sold to overseas countries, although the fighter uses a single release bureau, but its comprehensive performance is still quite strong, and the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has also prompted many countries to directly buy F-35 fighters from the United States.
Geographically, Romania is also a neighbor of Serbia, and just when Romania refitted its fighter jets and targeted the F-35 fighter, Serbia was not worried at all, because Serbia had just received a batch of Hongqi 22 air defense missiles from China, and the Hongqi 22 air defense missiles can be regarded as a low-grade version of the Hongqi 9 air defense missiles, and its comprehensive performance is also comparable to the American Patriot 3 air defense missiles. In the design process of the Hongqi 22 air defense missile, it has been explicitly mentioned that it can threaten the fifth-generation aircraft.
Serbia is not a member of NATO, and in the process of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, Serbia did not follow the United States in strategy, and from a geographical point of view, Serbia is surrounded by NATO regiments, so after obtaining the Red Flag 22 air defense missile, even if the neighboring countries are equipped with fifth-generation fighters, Serbia does not need to be nervous, because this Chinese air defense weapon has quite excellent performance, in addition to completing the interception of the fifth-generation aircraft, it can also complete anti-missile operations. Text/Iris