China experienced significant problems with lunching domestic production of the MiG-21F-13 and it seems that most of the early J-7s were actually assembled from MiG-21F-13s delivered from the USSR. This was one of fewer than two dozen MiG-21F-13s that actually entered operational service with PLAAF units in the 1960s. Following the ‘norms’ from the times of the Cultural Revolution, it was decorated with oversized political slogans on the forward fuselage, while the serial was moved to the base of the fin, and the national marking applied above it. The aircraft was usually armed with a single NR-30 internal cannon installed on the right side of the lower fuselage and a pair of R-3S air-to-air missiles – subsequently replaced by their Chinese copy, the PL-2 (both received the ASCC/NATO-codename ‘AA-2 Atoll’). (Artwork by Tom Cooper)