Mig-25 defection: How a Soviet Pilot Brought a Secret Warplane To The West

The Aviationist ^ | July 19, 2013 | Jacek Siminski, David Cenciotti

[AppyPappy]

Actually, the MIG 19 and MIG 21 were pretty decent planes. They were just pretty decent planes in the late 50’s/early 60’s and it was the 1970’s.

Great designs, bad implementation.

[AppyPappy]

The -25 has the turning radius of B-52 towing a glider

[Portcall24]

Thanks for posting. The late Richard ‘Moody’ Suter, exceptional fighter pilot, excellent thinker (he created Red Flag in Nevada and Warrior Prep in Germany) and all around great guy was one of the people who debriefed Belenko. I think of this event often because my wife and I drive by Airlie, VA on the way to our daughters to visit. Airlie is a conference center/retreat in Northern Virginia and that’s where The Agency kept Belenko for some time.

[Texas Fossil]

I bought and read the defecting pilot’s book (now given to a friend) when it was first published many years ago.

I think this statement was wrong.>

“Although pilot defections during the Cold War were not a rarity, what made Belenko’s defection unique was the fact that the MiG-25 was completely unknown in the West. “

We already new what this plane was capable of in speed, but not the actual construction. What we did not know was when the bursts of speed took place, the plane needed major repairs.

It was an very interesting book, concerning life in the military in the USSR.

[Calvin Locke]

They were just pretty decent planes in the late 50’s/early 60’s and it was the 1970’s.

Yeah, but Cuba just got caught sending a couple of '21s to NK for repair. Under a cargo of sugar...

[fso301]

a Soviet countermeasure – the MiG-25

I thought the MiG-25 was designed to intercept the B-70?

[Calvin Locke]

...designed to catch and shootdown U-2s and SR-71s.

That and bombers. But speaking of recon aircraft, the last time I saw mention of the Mig-25, ironically, was that in the role of a recon aircraft. India, if I'm not mistaken.

[Doc91678]

What was not mentioned is the famous XB-70 Valkyarie. Original Design and manufacture of the MIG-25 was to intercept the coming threat of the B-70. USAF scrapped the project leaving Russia to further develop the Foxbat.

[virgil283]

In the book “Mig pilot” when Viktor Belenko came to the U.S. he wanted to see if the country was full of poor people ruled by gangsters as he had been told all his life. So he asked his handlers if he could go to a grocery store. They took him to the nearest one (in D.C.) and he saw food, fresh meat, etc. like nothing he'd ever seen in the USSR. So he thought ' well this is a show store for tourists ' So he asked to go to another store. So after several stores he finally asked to go to one in the worst neighborhood. There he saw what he expected : thugs, the very poor...But even there was lots of food, bread , fresh meat and nobody was shoving or fighting to get it......we don't know what we got....it's a good book by the way...

[AppyPappy]

I wonder what they were getting in return.

[Freelance Warrior]

Mikoyan also made a version of MiG-25 for supesonic bombing, armed with the Peleng-2 system. No info on whether it was used al least once, though.

[AppyPappy]

The Aquariums of P yon-Yang is the same type of read when it comes to grocery stores.

[yarddog]

I recall after the Soviet Union collapsed, there was a meeting between Russian and U.S. Pilots. They all hit it off becoming friends and discussing shop I guess.

A defector pilot from the Soviet Union, (I am not sure who he was), came up to the Russian Pilots and they would not even speak to him. Totally gave him the cold shoulder.

[Timber Rattler]

Yeah, the MiG-25R saw heavy use in India and the Middle East. During the Yom Kippur War of 1973, a Syrian based MiG-25R (probably with a Soviet pilot) overflew Israel at Mach 3.2. Israeli F-4s tried to catch it, but it flew too high and too fast. Apparently, it wrecked its engines as a result, and only barely made it back to base. Mach 2.8 seems to be its safest operating speed.

[Timber Rattler]

Originally, it was to built to reach and catch the U-2, but then it’s mission later included the SR-71 and prospective XB-70.

[cunning_fish]

>>>I got a chance to crawl around in a Mig-25 at Nellis AFB in 1984. At the time I was an avionics tech on the F-15. I was struck by how crude and primitive the Mig was compared to the F-15. The cockpit looked like something from the 40’s. All the technology and engineering looked about 40 years behind the F-15 and F-16. I was told what made them a threat was the shear number of Migs the USSR could throw at us. We found out in subsequent skirmishes in the Mideast (just like in Vietnam) that the Mig’s were no match for our jets even with the advantage in numbers.<<<

But it still holds a record as a fastest mass-produced aircraft. Highest ceiling as well.

Mig-25 has scored the first kill in Gulf War (against F-18). It has killed Hornet with a long range missile beyond visual range undetected.

>>>IIRC there were a lot of guffaws concerning the radio because it was vacuum tube. Then they realized the radio was relatively immune to EMP.<<<

This radar was also a jam-proof. It has simply burned through countermeasures. During the first Gulf War Iraqis has easily fond allied jammers with Foxbats. If not for a numerous escorts they could ‘ve been toasted.

All a criticism of Mig-25 comes out misunderstanding of it’s role.

The reality is in late 1961 a Soviet aircraft industry was ordered to make some thousand high-performance interceptors suitable to counter a massive strategic nuclear bombing by USAF XB-70s.

Mig company hasn’t thought long. They took a couple of king-size turbojets and built everything around as cheaply as possible. It made them the lowest bidder and they got this order. Powerful vacuum tube radar was essential because immunity to an EMP was crucial in terms of nuclear exchange. Another innovation was a twin vertical stabilizer.

This thing is not a dogfighter. An idea was to take-off, reach Mach 3 and 15 miles altitude and intercept as many XB-70s as possible before they’ve reached objectives. And Mig-25 seems like agile right enough to do exactly this job. Screw complicity and overengineering.

The problem is they built thousand+ and XB-70 hasn’t ever entered service.

[ontap]

The Foxbat was a piece of crap.....although it boasted of super speed the engines were so crude they could not maintain the max speed but for a few seconds before exhausting it's fuel supply. When the airplane was inspected we learned just how far ahead we were. Of course the democrats made sure they let the Russians steal enough of our technology to keep them in the race!!!

[jttpwalsh]

B-1 Bob. He was a character. I worked in the same building for a while, where his district office was, in Garden Grove (CA). Thanks for the memory ;)

[zot]

Thanks for the Foxbat ping.

[Lazamataz]

The Soviet doctrine was to field equipment that was technically somewhat inferior, but was cheaper and most of all much more maintainable. The early versions of our best aircraft required exacting specifications and equipment for maintenance, whereas, with the Russian versions, it was not uncommon to see a Soviet flight-mechanic adequately maintain the aircraft with nothing more than a couple of wrenches and a ball-peen hammer.

You see this doctrine at work in the small arms each country fielded, as well: We, with our relatively finicky M16's, and them, with their utterly rugged AK-47s.