In February 1945, the Council of People's Commissars ordered the Mikoyan-Gurevich (MiG) OKB to develop a single-seat jet fighter to be equipped with two German BMW 003 engines.

A steel laminate heatshield was installed on the bottom of the rear fuselage to protect it from the exhaust gasses.

[5] According to aviation historian Bill Gunston, on 24 April 1946 representatives from Mikoyan-Gurevich and the Yakovlev OKB tossed a coin to determine which aircraft would be the first Soviet jet to fly.

During a demonstration in front of high-ranking officials on July 11, the attachment lugs of the wing leading edge fairings failed and they hit the horizontal stabilizers.

The remaining two prototypes began flight testing the following month, but preparations for the 7 November parade commemorating the October Revolution delayed the start of the State acceptance trials until 17 December.

The trials were concluded in June and the MiG-9 generally met the performance goals set by the Council of People's Commissars.

A batch of 50 aircraft, 40 single-seat fighters and 10 two-seat trainers, were ordered in late 1946 to participate in the 1947 May Day parade.

[9] The two-seat trainer had the internal OKB designations of I-301T and izdeliye FT and the first prototype was converted from one of the "parade" aircraft during 1946.

State acceptance trials were not completed until 2 June and the aircraft was rejected because of the poor visibility from the rear cockpit.

It passed its state acceptance trials later in 1947 and was recommended for production with the service designation of UTI MiG-9.

The ejection seats were extensively tested during 1948 and approved for use, but by this time the aircraft was deemed obsolete and there was no point in building a training version.

250 fighters and 60 trainers were scheduled to be built in 1948, but production was disrupted by preparations to begin manufacture of the vastly superior MiG-15 later that year.

[11] The fourth and fifth aircraft of the parade batch were used in flight tests to eliminate the engine flameout problem from late 1947 through early 1948.

They were fitted with a prominent rectangular hollow vane on the barrel of the N-37 cannon that was nicknamed the "butterfly" (bahbochka).

Other attempts to ameliorate the problem included fitting a muzzle brake on the N-37 as well as extending its barrel, but nothing worked.

The armament was rearranged with the 23 mm cannon moved to each side of the fuselage, even with the N-37 gun in the centerline bulkhead; the latter's ammunition supply was increased to 45 rounds.

The OKB added 12-millimeter (0.47 in) armor plates fore and aft to protect the pilot and he was provided with a bulletproof windscreen, but no other changes were made to the aircraft.

It had an imported Rolls-Royce Nene I centrifugal-flow turbojet rated at 2,230 kgf (21.9 kN; 4,900 lbf) and the armament was rearranged yet again in another attempt to eliminate the gas ingestion problem.

[16] One MiG-9 (izdeliye FK) was modified in 1949 to serve as a testbed for the KS-1 Komet air-launched anti-shipping cruise missile.

A second unpressurized cockpit was built in line with the trailing edge of the wing for the guidance system operator.

These units later handed their aircraft over to the 6th, 7th, 12th, 14th, 16th, and 17th Fighter Divisions of the People's Liberation Army Air Force when their training was complete.

[19] The Chinese considered sending their MiG-9s to Korea in 1951 under Soviet pressure, but reconsidered when the PLAAF commanders reported that they believed that it would be better to retrain MiG-9 pilots on MiG-15s.

[20] Soviet Union People's Republic of China Data from MiG: Fifty Years of Secret Aircraft Design[22]General characteristics Performance Armament