The Soviet Union also supported various nations like India and delivered Mikoyan designed fighter aircraft. The Mig-21 being amongst them. Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in India built in license the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 including the "bis" and "MF". Production of the MiG-21s started at HAL in Nasik in 1966. Between 1966 and 1972 over 200 MiG-21FL were produced starting from sub-assembly kits. After 1971 the MiG-21M was produced until end 1981 with about 150 delivered.
It was followed by the MiG-21bis with about 300 built. 

Upgrades were also done as late as 2014 with the MiG-21 "Bison" fitted with new Kopyo radar and Vympel R-27 and R-73 air-missile capability and these are currently still in Indian service. 

Note that the model is for a MIG-21 PFM. I used it for the HAL MiG-21 "MF" without any modification. May be the top fuselage fairing is slightly different in shape but I did not bother for such a small model to worry about it.

The kit parts are very simple and it would better to use another kit if you really want a detailed MiG-21. So this little 1/72 kit was made straight out of the box. 

Filler was needed in some places. What is nice are the deep wheel bays! 

For the cockpit, only a bulkhead was made from thin card.
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Ready to apply the paint scheme.

First, the overall model got a light grey base coat. After that, a gloss black coat was applied. Next after drying for the Aluminium/ natural metal ALCLAD II was used for the normal aluminium. 
The smaller parts were not forgotten.

Here the spine is seen to advantage, thick aft of the canopy and thinner towards the vertical fin.

India Air Force decals were initially used from PRINT SCALE set 72-009. 

I found out to late that in this set the India roundels are inaccurate in shape and colour. 

Five years later I discovered that I still had an old Microscale set 72-101. Though quite old, I decided to apply these much better coloured Microscale roundels OVER the old decals on this model. This is shown in the finished model photos below. The model may not be perfect but looks better now.

Painting was done on the undercarriage with for the wheel hub green XTRACOLOR X628 enamel used. Most other details were metallic. The JATO assisted take off pods were also located below the aft fuselage. On the outher wing pylons, two unguided rocketpods were added as from the kit. 

After applying the few decals as per instructions, the model got a decal protecting coat of Johnson Future/ Pledge with the airbrush.

The inside of the cockpit was only detailed by adding some seatbelts/straps made from tape. The nice kit canopy was cut with a TIGER razorsaw and set open. The interior was painted light grey. 
..

The lower speedbrakes were set slightly opened up. The nose pitot got a metal tip made from a needle. 

Microscale roundels OVER the old decals on this model, a better result.

 
 
      INDIA AIR FORCE MIG-21 MF 

More information about the India air force... look at the Jaguar page...