(Text and photos: author)
It is over. Just as secretly and opaquely as the last years of Croatian MiG-21 operations went by, so they end: with two unannounced flights on December 19, 2024. I was there for one of them, the penultimate one. As there was no official announcement of the end of Croatian MiG-21 operations, hope persisted until February 3. On that day a message from the press office of the Croatian Air Force made it unmistakably clear: the Croatian MiG-21s are no longer active. At least this message came with the news that I was allowed to come to Pleso for a farewell visit. And even if no MiG-21 flew there any more, at least one aircraft was allowed to taxi under its own power and give me the impressions that had been denied to me in Croatia for many years.
The retirement of the last European MiG-21s ends not only an era of military aviation. For me personally, a phase of life lasting more than 35 years comes to an end. The MiG-21 has accompanied my entire adult life. And even though my involvement with the MiG-21 is certainly not over yet, the MiG-21's farewell from Europe marks a significant turning point.
My direct contact with the MiG-21 begins in 1988, at a time when several thousand MiG-21s are still active in Europe. But only two years later, with the disappearance of the GDR and its army, not only does my military service end prematurely, but also the operation of the MiG-21 in the eastern part of Germany, after the Soviet MiG-21s stationed there had already been replaced by newer types by the mid-1980s. When, a good decade earlier, they still equipped most Soviet regiments in Germany, the concentration of MiG-21s on GDR territory was the highest in the whole world.
So when the signs of the times already point to farewell, the newly founded Croatia even adds another operator. And nobody could have predicted at that time that the history of the European MiG-21 would continue for a good 30 years.
In 1998 Finland becomes the first operator to part with the MiG-21 in the regular way, followed at short intervals by Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Albania. Sometimes the MiG-21 is given a ceremonial farewell, sometimes flight operations simply end without fanfare.
While the MiG-21 disappears from large parts of Europe, from the mid-1990s Romania lays the foundation for the long-term continued operation of the MiG-21 with the LanceR upgrade programme; with the retirement of the MiG-23 and -29, it remains the only type in the inventory. Croatia follows with a much less ambitious programme. As non-upgraded aircraft also remain in service in Bulgaria and Serbia, the number of European MiG-21 operators remains unchanged for about ten years, even though the fleets continue to shrink.
When the end finally comes into sight in these countries, my farewell to the European MiG-21s also begins. Before that, however, there are still some highlights that will stay with me forever. While my visit to Batajnica 2010 was indeed to remain my last with the Serbian MiG-21s and I only watched the quiet death of the fleet from afar, in the last days of Bulgarian MiG-21 operations I was given the unforgettable opportunity to experience and photograph the MiG-21 from the air and in the air.
Subsequently I intensified my already close contacts with Romania and experienced the best editions of each of these events with the last open day at Câmpia Turzii 2017, the visit to the base in 2018 and the Bucharest International Airshow 2019.
Then came the worldwide corona hysteria, and instead of being in the thick of it, all that remained was the role of a more or less tolerated onlooker at the fence in Zagreb in 2020, 2021 and 2022. Even an airshow appearance that was modest compared with earlier years became an experience.
Hardly had the "pandemic" subsided when the war in Ukraine and political intrigue made everything happen very quickly. With a few strokes of the pen, the multi-year continued operation of the Romanian MiG-21s became a reprieve of just under a year, during which I only just managed to experience flight operations at close range once more – albeit more tolerated than welcome – at Câmpia Turzii and Feteşti. After no access at all was granted any more, a harmless look from outside then led to a scandal, to espionage charges and to the refusal to let me attend the already meagre farewell ceremony. So no happy ending.
What then remained was a handful of Croatian MiG-21s, which I had last been allowed to visit directly in 2002 (!) and which had only come back into my focus with the restrictions of the corona period. Missing information and permits were compensated by enthusiasm and thousands of kilometres driven. And the closer the farewell came, the smaller the occasion could be to set off again. Starting in late summer 2023, I used every announced MiG-21 flight to drive to Zagreb. And since the reports of when MiG-21 operations would really be over changed every month, that amounted to six more trips to Zagreb in the course of 2024, five as an onlooker at the fence and one as a visitor to the AirVG airshow. The visit to Pleso in March 2025 then marks the conciliatory conclusion of this chapter.
All in all, over time I travelled to Croatia more than 20 times and once to an appearance of a Croatian MiG-21 abroad. Here is the complete record:
92 Zrakoplovna Baza Pula 2001
91 Zrakoplovna Baza Zagreb-Pleso 2002
15th anniversary of the formation of the Croatian Armed Forces Zagreb 2006
204. Lovački avijacijski puk Batajnica 2006 with a detour to Zagreb
Croatian International Airshow Varaždin 2006
Aeromiting Zagreb 2006
Aeromiting Čakovec 2006
Open day Zadar 2006
Aeromiting Zagreb-Lučko 2008
Croatian International Airshow Varaždin 2009
Open day Zagreb-Pleso 2011
Zagreb Airport 2013
Zagreb Airport 2015
Zagreb Airport 2018
Croatian International Airshow Varaždin 2018
Zagreb Airport 2020
Zagreb Airport 2021
Zagreb Airport 2022
Airpower Zeltweg 2022
Zagreb Airport 2023
AirVG Zagreb-Pleso 2024
Zagreb Airport 2024
91 Zrakoplovna Baza Zagreb-Pleso 2025
Of all these encounters with the Croatian MiG-21s, above all the spectacular display of "Kockica" at CIAV 2006 will always stay in my memory:
The history of the MiG-21 is not over yet. Even if India is about to retire its last upgraded examples and the few remaining MiG-21s in Syria are unlikely to have survived the fall of Assad and the subsequent Israeli air strikes, airworthy Soviet-built aircraft are still in active service in North Korea, perhaps also in Libya and Cuba. Will I manage to see them fly (again)?
The chances are better for the Chinese-built J/F-7, still in service in its country of manufacture, but also in Namibia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Iran, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and again North Korea. But here, too, it is likely to be difficult to obtain the necessary permits. Simply driving up to the airport fence as in Zagreb in recent years is certainly not an option there ...