The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23 (NATO code reporting name: Flogger) is a variable-geometry fighter aircraft, designed by the Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau in the Soviet Union. Work on the Mikoyan-Gurevich 'Flogger' started in the early 1960s, when Frontal Aviation (FA), the Soviet tactical air defense/ strike force, had taken delivery of numerous MiG-21s and Sukhoi Su-7s. The MiG bureau produced two prototype aircraft to the FA's specification, apparently sharing some common design features. One of these resembled an enlarged MiG-21, with the same mid-set delta wing and conventional tail, but to reduce the field length with-in reasonable bounds it was fitted with two lift-jet engines in the center-section. The other, designated Ye-231, was a straightforward application of the then-fashionable variable-sweep, or variable- geometry (VG) formula. It is probable that both of them made their first flights in late 1966 or early 1967; by the time they appeared at the air show held at Domodedovo, near Moscow, in June 1967, the weight penalties and control complications inherent in the lift-jet design had led to its abandonment in favor of the swing-wing Ye-231. Following the show, the delta received the NATO code-name 'Faithless' and the Ye-231 was named 'Flogger'.
The MiG-23 was designed to intercept maneuverable and non-maneuverable aerial targets in the forward and aft hemispheres day or night, in VFR and IFR conditions, against the earth or radio-transparent cloud background, as well as in active and passive jamming environments, conduct close maneuver air combat, defeat ground targets, including the single mobile ones, in visual contact conditions.
Middle Eastern allies of the Soviet Union were the first export customers for the MiG-23; Egypt, Libya and Syria took delivery of their first batches in the course of 1975. All of them, however, received deliberately downgraded export models of the type. The first of these was the 'Flogger-E' fighter, which differed from the MiG-23MF in having a much smaller radar (probably related to the 'Jay Bird' system fitted to later MiG-21s) and in being armed with AA-2 'Atoll' missiles. More recently, however, export customers appear to have received the more potent MiG-23MF.