Название: Foxbat Tales: The MiG-25 in Combat Автор: Mike Guardia Издательство: Magnum Books Год: 2020 Страниц: 141 Язык: английский Формат: epub Размер: 14.4 MB
July 1967: At the Moscow Air Show, the Soviets unveiled six new state-of-the-art aircraft. From among this lineup of new fighters and interceptors stood the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25—purportedly capable of outrunning and outmaneuvering any aircraft in NATO’s inventory.
Yet even before its public appearance in Moscow, the MiG-25 had been a grave concern for Western analysts. Two years earlier, for example, the first operational MiG-25 had flown faster than 1,440 mph on a 1,000-kilometer circuit. During the same flight trial, it climbed to more than 65,000 feet in under three minutes. Later that year, the MiG-25 set a new world altitude record for payload and non-payload flights. These performance metrics were virtually unheard of in the West.
Indeed, the MiG-25 could fly at speeds in excess of Mach 3 and reach altitudes heretofore deemed unreachable for a tactical fighter. There was little doubt that this new MiG-25, which NATO had code-named the “Foxbat,” had broken the airspeed records for East and West. Meanwhile, NATO’s intelligence community was baffled by how the Soviets could cobble together such a “masterpiece” of modern engineering.
Although the MiG-25 (and many of its latter-day stablemates) proved to be a disappointment by NATO standards, it nevertheless enjoyed a long service life in the latter-day Soviet Air Force and several of its allies. The USSR remained the sole operator of the MiG-25 until the 1980s, when it was exported to the Middle East—including Libya, Iraq, and Syria. The MiG-25 saw combat in Syrian service during the Arab-Israeli air campaigns of the 1980s. Almost simultaneously, Iraqi MiG-25s engaged Iranian F-4 Phantoms and F-14 Tomcats during the Iran-Iraq War. Many of these Iraqi Foxbats would later see action against coalition forces during the Gulf War in 1991. Although the Foxbat was usually the loser when pitted against Western aircraft, one Iraqi MiG-25 was confirmed to have downed an American F/A-18 Hornet during the opening stages of Operation Desert Storm.
Today, less than a handful of countries maintain an active fleet of MiG-25s—including Libya, Syria, and Algeria. The Russian Air Force retired the last of its Foxbats in the mid-2010s. Despite its questionable construction, and relatively poor performance in combat, the MiG-25 excelled in its primary role as an interceptor. By design, interceptors are intended to fly fast against unidentified aircraft, and thus have fewer defensive armaments than a typical air-superiority fighter. Whether guarding the Soviet frontier, or flying patrols over the Mediterranean, the MiG-25 Foxbat was a common sight during the latter decades of the Cold War.
From the Arab world to the Iron Curtain, Foxbat Tales is the definitive operational and combat history of the MiG-25.
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Foxbat Tales: The MiG-25 in Combat 
Название: Foxbat Tales: The MiG-25 in Combat 
