Mirage F1s vs MiG-21s-- South African Border War, Angola 1982

Eleven months after their first clash, South African Mirage F1s and Angolan MiG-21s flown by Cuban pilots met again in the skies over Angola. Major Johan Rankin again led the Mirage flight. Was this time the outcome different? Or similar? Check out in this video.

Sources:
- Brigadier General Dick Lord - From Fledgling to Eagle: The South African Air Force during the Border War
- Peter Baxter - SAAF's BorderWar - The South African Air Force In Combat 1966-89
- Tom Cooper, Adrien Fontanellaz, José Augusto Matos - War of Intervention in Angola, Volume 3
- Aircrew Interview - Mirage F1 vs MiG-21 | Cobus Toerien

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#militaryaviationhistory #borderwars #dcsworldhistoricalreenactment

[sfertonoc]

They fought Mig-23s too. South Africans also invented the helmet mounted sight.

[jimgordon]

I was a chaplain on Air Force Base Ondangwa on the day that it happened and in the radar room when they led the Mirages to their target. Thanks for bringing good, but also very scary memories. We, who lived on the base were always nervous of direct attacks.

War is never a good thing. I had to CASAVAC too many young men maimed for life.

[duartesimoes]

Being Air traffic Controller, In the eighties I met an Angolan MIG-21 pilot who was taking a helicopter rating in Portugal. There were many, most without any prior flight experience. He told me that the MIGs were always instructed by their GCI to avoid combat with the South African Mirage F1s. Always. There was a radio code for that, and normally Spanish language was used since many MIG pilots were Cubans.
Sadly, several months after returning to Angola he was shot down and killed in his MI-8, in 1989. I was told by his former instructor. He was a very fine fellow, looking very much like Lionel Ritchie in the eighties. He spoke and wrote Russian fluently, having taken his L-29 and MIG-21 rating in the USSR and said the MIG-21 was very straightforward to fly. To this day I still have a paper in which he wrote my name and "MIG-21Bis" in Cyrillic...

[Mikelockey]

I met the Cuban pilot who defected to South Africa . I think his name was Antonio .He told me of his high regard for the south African pilots after having engaged a Mirage and despite having been so badly shot up, the pilot whom he later met and became friends with, managed to limp the Mirage back to safety rather than crash it .Antonio was a soft spoken gentleman and its strange to think than had we encountered each other a number of years before, we would have tried our best to kill each other ...Made me wonder how many other decent Cubans died uneccessarily not to mention our own troops who never got past the age of 17, 18, 19, 20 ...I was 17 when we were drafted ... Good memories though ..Hard times but sometimes I wish we could revisit just for the memory .

[kenhewing]

Remind me of my military service in SWA in the late 80's. I was in the 1st SSB, Ratal 90 crew member. We took on T34 and T56 with our 90mm french design cannon. The Angolans and Cubans came second best. It will be nice this see this part of the war showing.

[Gozar]

Nice to see our history told too! Hey from South Africa 🇿🇦

[janmale]

The Mirage like the Spitfire was a bird of classical beauty! We as South Africans were very proud of our Migrages !

[kosmashionidis]

This guy should have more than 20k subscribers. He always does an excellent job.

[louislochner]

Great content 👌🏼 As South African it's great to see some (local) relevant content too! 🇿🇦

[laxanopoiosOG]

Very nice video as always! Very Interesting to learn about conflicts such as these, and how the use of air forces affect them.

[theprofiler]

I love your narration. Keeps me coming back. It’s very educational also.

[bazejs]

Please don't give up on this music pieces at the beginning - they are awesome!
Like they hook man immediately and make him stay for the whole video. They are selected so well, perfect atmosphere.

[kalaharimine]

Dassault made gorgeous looking planes.

[lukasvisagie]

Excellent SAAF pilots, fighting more modern aircraft and missiles and still coming out best!

[depilot]

Very cool video, your content never fails to keep me watching. Keep it up and hope you have a good day

[PointlessGunSyncs]

Since the Mirage F1 got added, would it be possible to take a look at some engagements during the Cenepa War between Ecuador and Perú?

Keep up the amazing content Showtime!!

[RealDarko]

Excellent reconstruction as always! Looking forward to more.

[useryggfdcc]

Rankin was my squadron leader . He eventually became the head of the South African Airforce.
He was very strict with the pilots, still remember him yelling at a Capt after an ACM training sortie.

[sparkz]

My Daze this is the needle in the hay I was looking for even going in to such small conflicts it is simply wonderful

[martinwolmarans]

Mirages used to fly over the 1 Recce base in the Bluff Durban 80's/90's. Was pretty awesome. When they flew over our school.