MiG 25 interceptions

[tartare]

Hello all,
Have just finished reading Foxbat Tales by Mike Guardia.
Great history of the MiG 25 - as a kid I remember seeing the news reports of Egyptian detachment flights by the Russians outrunning Israeli F-4s over the Middle East... way too high and way too fast to even be touched back then.
Has anyone on the forum ever intercepted a Foxbat, or seen one up close and personal in the air?
Presume the only members who would have might have been in Iraq early in GW1 - and from the book - imagine they'd be USAF.
Did any Tonkas mix with it?
I suspect some certainly used ordinance to intercept Iraqi Foxbats on the ground... :E
What a hulking beast of a jet... and later versions surprisingly sophisticated too.
Built for straight line speed though, and predictably hopeless in a turning fight...

[Lima Juliet]

It used to be “the Christmas Challenge” in the sim each year on the Tornado F3. The target would be a Mach 2-2.5 FOXBAT or FOXHOUND at 70,000-80,000ft and you would be in a 4x Sky Flash and 4x Sidewinder fit. The challenge was to get a valid head sector and stern sector shot off - one of each. Quite a challenge but certainly doable.

For the F3, the thing to do was to get a pair of Sky Flash off head sector and a sidewinder whilst getting up to M2.0 and 50,000ft, then holding the target 55 degrees off of the scope to generate some turning room. The Launch Success Zones (LSZs) were pretty huge at those speeds and heights, so it was possible. Once you had about 10nm of turning room then you needed to start turning very gently to try and keep the speed on and try to get the target back into the lead side of the scope and get the rest of your missiles off once past the target’s 3/9 line.

Plenty would manage it, so it then became a timed exercise to decide who was the best crew :ok:

PS. I believe the F3 committed against a FOXBAT a couple of times, but each time the target turned away.

[Piper_Driver]

My understanding is that they were successfully engaged using F14s and Phoenix missiles during the Iran/Iraq war.

[tartare]

Thanks LJ - interesting to know.
PD - yep - the book details multiple engagements by the Iranian Tomcats, and the USAF over the Gulf of Sidra.
I'm wondering if any Tornado drivers here got a lock during GW1 - are there any on the forum?
As far as I am aware, the Foxbat was never deployed to any other regions where RAF pilots would have come up against it?

[NutLoose]

Interesting read

https://theaviationist.com/2016/09/06/the-story-of-the-soviet-pilot-who-defected-to-japan-with-a-secretive-mig-25-foxbat-otd-in-1976/

[Shaft109]

If read about the radar being able to kill rabbits on the ground before - is that a bit of dressing or was that true?

[tartare]

Yes, I remember reading that too.
It relates back to first examination of the Belenko jet when he defected.
I remember reading stories at the time that Western techs were surprised it used valves; was so powerful it could cook a rabbit at 200 metres.
Hard to separate fact from fiction however.
There appears to be a reference to vacuum tubes in the text below.
From secret projects:

The MiG-25 used the RP-25 "Smerch-A" radar which has an interesting history. It goes back to 1954 and the Urugan-5 system, the first fully integrated and automated air defence system which was intended to counter new threats such as the B-58 Hustler. It combined multiple ground based radars and command datalinks with and an onboard radar able to detect bombers at least 25km away and capable of head-on engagements. NIIP's (Designer: F F Volkov) "Uragan-5B" radar was a major improvement on his earlier twin antenna Almaz design ("Uragan-1") and was intended to equip Mikoyan (I-75, Ye-150/152) and Sukhoi (T-37) heavy interceptors along with with K-6/K-7 (later, K-8/K-9-155/K-9-51) AAMs.Uragan-5B was far in advance of contemporary Soviet radars, and implemented many advances in electronics and radar systems, including semi-conductors (116 vacuum tubes, 280 semi-conductor elements). It used a cassegrain antenna. It was designed as a monoblock, which slid into the nose of the aircraft and easily removed for maintenance. It was a real breakthrough in Soviet aircraft radar design. With smaller size and weight (220kg) than Almaz, it had greater jamming resistance and reliability, and detected bombers at 30km and reliably tracked them at 20km. However slow progress with the heavy fighters, (both eventually cancelled), Uragan-5, and rapid advances in technology, meant new longer range missiles were now in development (K-80) which needed longer range radars. NIIP by this time were redirected to SAM radar development so in 1958 Volkov was moved to OKB-339 (Phazotron) where he continued work on Uragan derivatives. Uragan-5B-80 was a major redesign for the K-80 missile, and added a new inverse cassegrain antenna with much improved characteristics (originally designed by NII-17). Detection range was increased to more than 50km and tracking range to 30-40km. This radar design was put into production for the Tu-128 as RP-S "Smerch" [BIG NOSE] As soon as Smerch entered testing in the early 1960s Volkov embarked on another new version. RP-SA "Smerch-A" [FOX FIRE] increased detection range to 90-100km and tracking range to 50-70km. Initially intended for the Tu-128A which did not get built, it ended up equipping the MiG-25P interceptor and was retrofitted to the Tu-128 (as RP-SM) later on. Smerch-A weighed about 500kg, was a low PRF pulse radar with inverse cassegrain antenna. It was the ultimate development of a family of radars started in 1954. A good comparison would be the F-4D's APQ-109 radar. The Smerch-A1 as fitted to the MiG-25 prototypes introduced a second, secret operating wavelength of 2cm in addition to the standard 3cm to ensure the radar would function even in a heavy ECM environment. This was strictly prohibited from use in peacetime. By the time it entered production, improvements in jamming resistance and low-level clutter tolerance had been achieved. Smerch-A2 / Izdeliye 720M gave improved reliability, and was the standard production radar, and Smerch-A3 more improvements, which were fitted to later model MiG-25Ps as they rolled off the production line. Around 1974 a developed "Smerch-A4" was proposed for the MiG-25-40M with lookdown-shootdown capability and R-40M missiles, but given that the MiG-31 prototype was close to first flight with the revolutionary Zaslon radar further MiG-25 developments were canned. Additionally the Sapfir-23 radar had a more promising method of clutter rejection.

Note also from Wikipedia:

The majority of the on-board avionics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avionics) were based on vacuum-tube (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_tube) technology, more specifically nuvistors (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuvistor), not solid-state electronics (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_electronics). Although they represented aging technology, vacuum tubes were more tolerant of temperature extremes, thereby removing the need for environmental controls in the avionics bays. With the use of vacuum tubes, the MiG-25P's original Smerch-A (Tornado, NATO reporting name "Foxfire") radar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar) had enormous power – about 600 kilowatts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watt). As with most Soviet aircraft, the MiG-25 was designed to be as robust as possible. The use of vacuum tubes also made the aircraft's systems resistant to an electromagnetic pulse (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse), for example, after a nuclear blast. They were also presumably used to provide radiation hardening (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hardening) for the avionics.[37] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-25#cite_note-37)[38] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_MiG-25#cite_note-38)

[rotorwills]

Oh dear, have to admit that I have not only been close up to one, but went up in 2003. Lost an engine at mach2.8 73000. Hmm, interesting time. Was scheduled to meet up with my partner who was in a Mig29.
Had to land and so the meet never occurred. Have a video of the flight and also some ground shots with the ejector seat being removed, large orang rocket that had had me strapped on. Was suppose to go back once the fix at was sorted. I was gojng in the fulcrum and my partner the 25, he chickened out, so I never got on the Fulcrum but boy it was a fantastic experience. If any one wants any further info, pm me as it's better private.

[Commando Cody]

Interesting read

https://theaviationist.com/2016/09/06/the-story-of-the-soviet-pilot-who-defected-to-japan-with-a-secretive-mig-25-foxbat-otd-in-1976/


Couple of minor quibbles with the article. OXCART led to the development of the A-12; it's goal was not to develop the SR-71. The program to develop the SR-71 (admittedly a derivative of the A-12) for USAF was SENIOR CROWN. Also, the D-21 was not designed to be carried by the SR-71. The carrier for it was the M-21. This was an A-12 that had a second crewman that acted as a launch controller, placed in a new compartment in the Q-bay, which normally housed the A-12's sensors. The project name for this program was TAGBOARD.