The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-3 (Russian: Микоян и Гуревич МиГ-3) is a Soviet fighter-interceptor used during World War II.

Originally designed as a high-altitude fighter-interceptor, combat over the Eastern Front was generally at lower altitudes, where it was inferior to the German Messerschmitt Bf 109 as well as most of its Soviet contemporaries.

Testing was done on a full-size aircraft in the T-1 wind tunnel belonging to the Central Aero and Hydrodynamics Institute (TsAGI) to evaluate the problems and their proposed solutions.

Mikoyan and Gurevich protested against the range results as their calculations showed that the MiG-3 could reach 1,010 km (630 mi) based on a specific fuel consumption (SFC) of 0.46 kg/km (1.64 lb/mile).

A number of senior managers were demoted and the head of the Institute, Major General A. I. Filin was summarily executed.

This was demonstrated on 10 April 1941 when three pilots of the 31st Fighter Regiment of the Air Defenses (IAP PVO) attempted to intercept a German high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft over Kaunas, Lithuania flying at 9,000 m (30,000 ft).

The NII VVS sent an engineer to investigate and he found that the pilots had flown very few hours on the MiG-3 and that that was their first high-altitude sortie.

[7] Unfortunately for the MiG-3 and its pilots, aerial combat over the Eastern Front generally took place at low and medium altitudes where it had no speed advantage.

This lack of maneuverability was exacerbated by the MiG-3's poor climb performance, its instability at high speeds (which can make aerial gunnery difficult due to the point of aim "wandering" and requiring constant pilot input to remain on target), and its underpowered armament.

[12] The NKAP (Narodnyy komissariat aviatsionnoy promyshlennosti—People's Commission of the Aircraft Industry) announced its 1941 production plan on 9 December 1940.

43 in Kiev would begin construction of the MiG-3 and complete one hundred aircraft by the end of the year and Zavod Nr.

An additional factor in cancellation of the MiG-3 was that its Mikulin AM-35A engine was closely related to the Il-2's AM-38 allowing production to be quickly switched from one to the other.

1 had already been planned to be reduced from a NKAP order of 27 August that required the factory to produce 420 fighters in September, declining to 100 in December with Il-2 production ramping up to 250 in December while the former aircraft repair plant at Khodynka Aerodrome (Moscow) was to be transferred to the NKAP, redesignated as Zavod Nr.

High-altitude combat of this sort was to be rare on the Eastern Front where most air-to-air engagements were at altitudes well below 5,000 m (16,000 ft).

[20] The 4th and 55th Fighter Regiments had most of the MiG-3s assigned to the Odessa Military District and their experiences on the first day of the war may be taken as typical.

The 4th, an experienced unit, shot down a Romanian Bristol Blenheim reconnaissance bomber, confirmed by postwar research, and lost one aircraft which crashed into an obstacle on takeoff.

[21] Most of the MiG-3s assigned to the interior military districts were transferred to the PVO where their lack of performance at low altitudes was not so important.

[22][19][20] By 1 October, on the eve of the German offensive towards Moscow codenamed Operation Typhoon, only 257 were assigned to VVS units, 209 to the PVO, and 46 to the Navy, a total of only 512, a decrease of 140 fighters since 10 July, despite deliveries of over a thousand aircraft in the intervening period.

[20] By 5 December, the start of the Soviet counter-offensive that drove the Germans back from the gates of Moscow, the Navy had 33 MiGs on hand, the VVS 210 and the PVO 309.

[25] He later recalled: “Its designers rarely succeeded in matching both the fighter's flight characteristics with its firepower… the operational advantage of the MiG-3 seemed to be obscured by its certain defects.

The German invasion the following month caused the cancellation of the development of the AM-37 as Mikulin's resources were required for the AM-35 and AM-38 engines already in production.

It was recommended for production after passing its State acceptance trials in September, provided that a cure for the engine's tendency to overheat in ambient temperatures above 16 °C (61 °F) was found.

However the sole prototype was shot down on 5 October during flight tests and it was decided not to proceed with the idea as all AM-38 production was allocated to the Il-2.

To improve their service ceiling two aircraft were reduced in weight to 3,098 kg (6,830 lb), but no further details are known other than one reached a height of 11,750 metres (38,550 ft).

[35] Data from MiG: Fifty Years of Secret Aircraft Design [36]General characteristics Performance Armament