Maj. Yohannes Woldemariam proudly posing in front of the first Northrop F-5A delivered to Ethiopia, in 1966. Photo via S.N. Which is better? The Northrop F-5E Tiger II or the Mikoyan i Gurevich MiG-21? There have been countless discussions of this question and, probably, at least as many answers. Over 15,000 of these two cheap, lightweight, simple-to-maintain and -operate fighters were produced and, over the time, they’ve served in more than 60 different air forces — some of which operated both of them. The usual story is that they never met in combat and thus the ultimate question about their mutual superiority...