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That MiG-25 defection


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I've just finished reading "Red Eagles" about the USAF's secret squadron of MiGs and the Belenko defection is mentioned because the maintenance chief of the squadron at the time was sent out to Japan to help with the stripping of the MiG 25.

I've had the book for a long time but only just got around to reading it and found it thoroughly enjoyable.

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Yep, I remember that. Thanks for the age hurt. ;)

EDIT - oh I had it in my head it was 30 years ago, but its 40??? Damn, that must really hurt as I wasnt even born then. Sorry. :)

Is the article correct in stating that it couldnt intercept the SR-71? Im sure Ive read that it could, but it had to be very carefully calculated due to the speeds involved and fuel limitations. Regardless, the US stopped their flights over Soviet soil because of the threat and mothballed the Blackbird, only bringing it back out briefly for the first Gulf conflict...? Thats what I remember reading elsewhere anyway.

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In theory it was designed to intercept SR-71. In practice, it couldn't. By the time they had an echo, it was too late to plot an intercept. Even with MiGs on 'cab rank', they couldn't climb fast enough. Mach 3.25 clean was max for a 25, and the engines were wrecked after the flight. A 71 could do at least 3.45, and had the advantage of height.

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In theory it was designed to intercept SR-71. In practice, it couldn't. By the time they had an echo, it was too late to plot an intercept. Even with MiGs on 'cab rank', they couldn't climb fast enough. Mach 3.25 clean was max for a 25, and the engines were wrecked after the flight. A 71 could do at least 3.45, and had the advantage of height.

Yea, I read that the 25s engines didnt like it, something to do with the shock cone that the 71 had but the 25 didnt and the speed of the intake air. Still, wasnt it enough of a worry to stop the US overflights as they did stop at the time the 25 got posted out to forward positions?

Either way, a big jump for the Soviets at the time. Mach 3 is a hell of a feat for anything, especially with a man in it.

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According to Col Richard Graham O/C 9th SRW, overflights of the Soviet Union and China did not take place. The Project Tagboard drone was used over China, but was not a success. The capabilities of the onboard sensors allowed electronic penetration deep into the interior from altitude. I have read that ALL of China was overflown, but it was mapped without violation of their airspace.

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Flicking back through books earlier - I think youre right. After a certain U2 was downed, skirting of borders by manned aircraft seemed to be the way it went.

Although Im still seeing the introduction of the 25 and the retirement of the 71 as being interlinked in some way. Too much of an embarrassing political risk to have one downed perhaps? It cant have been a threat to have been ignored, surely.

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Again Col Graham said there was no risk to the 71. He used to watch MiGs circling ahead and below, then zoom climb, but he was gone before they could get to altitude. I asked him how many SAMs he had shot at him, he said NONE, and that was over Vietnam.

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The MiG-25 was not designed to intercept the SR-71 and it's no surprise that it could not reach the Blackbird. The MiG-25's design was the evolution of a continuous race toward faster interceptors by the MiG design bureau that was prompted by the increase in speed of the potential enemy bombers, the B-58 and then the B-70.

At the same time the Soviets followed the same logic of the US in the search for a very fast high level reconaissance aircraft, with this request merging with the interceptor.

The retirement of the SR-71 too has nothing to do with the MiG-25 or any other threat, it was simply the result of the costs involved in operating the platform at a time when satellite imagery and the advent of drones allowed similar results to be achieved at a fraction of the cost. That such retirement was a bit premature was shown by the even in Afghanistan when the US forces found themselves without a dedicated high level recce type, a void that was filled by an allied type that was also in its twilight, the Mirage IV. I remember that when the Blackbird was retired there were already similar concerns and a crash program to give them another 2-3 years was considered, in any case it's unlikely that the SR-71 could have survived for more than those 2-3 years

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OK, daft question. If the SR-71 were around today, how useful and vulnerable would it be? I imagine no aircraft could intercept it even now but surely missile technology would be able to catch up with it in all respects? Am I correct in thinking satellite technology is by far the best approach today? -discuss :-)

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The retirement of the SR-71 too has nothing to do with the MiG-25 or any other threat, it was simply the result of the costs involved in operating the platform at a time when satellite imagery and the advent of drones allowed similar results to be achieved at a fraction of the cost. That such retirement was a bit premature was shown by the even in Afghanistan when the US forces found themselves without a dedicated high level recce type, a void that was filled by an allied type that was also in its twilight, the Mirage IV. I remember that when the Blackbird was retired there were already similar concerns and a crash program to give them another 2-3 years was considered, in any case it's unlikely that the SR-71 could have survived for more than those 2-3 years

The retirement was purely a fiscal matter. After the programme was made public, it came into the 'white' budget, and the Air Force had to fund it. The intel gathered went mostly to the alphabet agencies, and the AF gathered little benefit, but all of the costs. The generals coveted the money for their own pet projects (See a certain money pit programme currently under way). Once the ex Blackbird driver Pentagon purse holders retired, the funding was plundered, and stories of a replacement under development were put about, to discredit 71. When it was reactivated, the detractors said putting 3 birds in the air would cost $700 million per annum. When they were previously operational, 13 birds cost $220 million p.a. As usual money or politics sound the death knell, rather than capability or vulnerability. It is possible more modern SAMs would cause a problem these days, but it was retired long before it's usefulness was over.

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On 13/9/2016 at 11:32 AM, bentwaters81tfw said:

The retirement was purely a fiscal matter. After the programme was made public, it came into the 'white' budget, and the Air Force had to fund it. The intel gathered went mostly to the alphabet agencies, and the AF gathered little benefit, but all of the costs. The generals coveted the money for their own pet projects (See a certain money pit programme currently under way). Once the ex Blackbird driver Pentagon purse holders retired, the funding was plundered, and stories of a replacement under development were put about, to discredit 71. When it was reactivated, the detractors said putting 3 birds in the air would cost $700 million per annum. When they were previously operational, 13 birds cost $220 million p.a. As usual money or politics sound the death knell, rather than capability or vulnerability. It is possible more modern SAMs would cause a problem these days, but it was retired long before it's usefulness was over.

 

I remember well when the aircrafts were retired and vulnerability was practically never mentioned. It was just a matter of money. That it was retired before it's usefulness was over is shown by the abovementioned fact that the USAF found themselves without a long range recce platform in the first days of the war in Afghanistan. However in that conflict it was the range and the sensor suites that were missed, vulnerability was never an issue as there was no SAM in theatre apart from a few MANPADS.

That today missiles would cause problems to a Blackbird is sure, the performance of some missiles can cause problems to platforms whose performances well exceed the Blackbird's. Not that a Blackbird would be an easy prey anyway, the combination of speed, ceiling and quite good radar invisibility would still make them hard to shoot down

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On ‎11‎/‎09‎/‎2016 at 9:32 PM, HP42 said:

OK, daft question. If the SR-71 were around today, how useful and vulnerable would it be? I imagine no aircraft could intercept it even now but surely missile technology would be able to catch up with it in all respects? Am I correct in thinking satellite technology is by far the best approach today? -discuss :-)

Probably not the best option at all. Satellites tend to fly in fixed orbits. I don't know if they can be easily altered. They would certainly be useful up to a point but lack the flexibility of a conventional reconnaissance asset which can be called into action at very short notice and, probably have a peek at multiple targets in one mission. In a fluid situation like an ongoing battle, real time information will be crucial. Satellites operating in fixed orbits surely cannot provide this when it is most likely to be needed? I would suggest that satellites could, at best only complement other recon assets, not replace them entirely. However, I am by no means an expert in the subject.

 

Allan 

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On 9/11/2016 at 4:30 PM, Slater said:

Standard Missile 3 (SM3) has successfully shot down a satellite in orbit, so I would think that an SR-71 type target would be well within it's capabilities.

Hitting a satellite in orbit is an entirely different animal. The target in question was in a well predicted and tracked orbit and the SM3 had modifications done to get to that altitude. Even then, the satellite was in a decaying orbit anyway and had no active jamming capability. Once the final stage of the SM3 had burned out, it became just a kinetic kill weapon at that point with no ability to maneuver and its impact was down to how well the flight path and timing were for the launch (the ship that fired it had two orbits to get the attempt right).

By comparison an SR-71 can maneuver and its flight path wouldn't be all that predictable.

The closest any SR-71 ever got to aircraft interception was an incident in the late 1980s when one blew out an engine not too far from Murmansk. When the bird had the problem, the Soviets did try to scramble an intercept flight with orders to try and force the plane to land, but they couldn't get there in time and the 71 ducked into neutral Swedish territory since they knew the Soviets weren't going to chance an international incident and while the Swedes officially "protested" they did provide coverage of the bird for the brief time it skirted through their airspace at sub-sonic speed. The plane ended up landing in Bodo Norway.

The North Koreans made an attempt to take a shot at one in 1981, but weren't even close. After that incident, Reagan authorized the deployment of Wild Weasel jets in the area and an SR-71 flew the same recon flight path on the next mission, daring the North Koreans to try again as if they did, they were going to get a massive case of ARM poisoning to their SAM sites. They never took the bait though.

Only documented damage ever to occur to a Blackbird was to a CIA A-12 on a direct overflight of Hanoi in 1968. SAMs were fired and one detonated close to the jet, but didn't disrupt the mission. However, when the plane landed after the mission a piece of SAM shrapnel was pulled out of the fuselage. It got stuck in one of the panel seams, but didn't do any damage. The USAF NEVER attempted to do an overflight of China or the USSR with an SR-71 because that is not their mission tasking. Even during the time of U-2 operations, the USAF's U-2 fleet only did flights along the border. Once in awhile a U-2 might stray over Soviet airspace, but not intentionally and otherwise they kept to the 12 mile international border limit.

Direct assigned USAF overflights of Soviet airspace hadn't taken place since the early 1950s and Eisenhower shut that operation down. The RAF on the otherhand did some overflights with RB-45s which were loaned from the USAF and a Canberra equipped with a borrowed camera to get imagery of the Kapustin Yar launch complex.

The A-12 was originally designed for the overflight mission, but it never did due to the change of attitude towards such things and it only a flew a handful of missions over Vietnam (and its last operational sortie to locate the USS Pueblo in a North Korean harbor after that ship was seized).

In the late 1960s, CIA backed U-2R overflights of China did take place with Nationalist Chinese pilots flying out of Taiwan. So technically, the US never "violated" Chinese airspace with any military assets or pilots. That was nothing new as Taiwan based big winged B-57 Canberras had been doing those penetrations since the 1950s. Indeed it was a Nationalist Chinese B-57 that got brought down by an SA-2 missile battery that the Soviets loaned to the Chinese a few short weeks before Powers got tagged. But nobody in the CIA or the NSA realized at the time what had downed the airplane.

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Hi

In his book Lockheed SR-71 operations in Europe and the Middle East Paul F. Crickmore includes an account of retired Swedish air force fighter controller Rolf Jonsson. He mentioned that Baltic Express (SR-71) flights were highly predictable and that they were sure about SR-71 arrival an hour before she actually appeared. Soviets enjoyed even longer preparation period, as they were alerted by intercepted KC-135Q radio traffic some two hours earlier than Swedes. No wonder a working interception pattern had been developed. Rolf Jonsson says that he had always been amazed by precise MiG-25 interceptions: radar picture always showed a Soviet fighter ending 2,9 km behind and some 1,9 km below SR-71. Crickmore speculates that must have something to do with missile parameters and that it was probably the optimal position for attack.

I read about RAF Canberra over Kapustin Yar, too, but I understand there is a controversy if this mission ever took place. I wish it had as reconnaissance Canberra and intercepting MiG-17 would make a nice combat duo addition to model collection. Cheers

Jure

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12 hours ago, Jure Miljevic said:

I read about RAF Canberra over Kapustin Yar, too, but I understand there is a controversy if this mission ever took place. I wish it had as reconnaissance Canberra and intercepting MiG-17 would make a nice combat duo addition to model collection. Cheers

Jure

 

Everything I have read says it took place, just not the exact dates due to British secrecy policies. It was discussed in Curtis Peebles' book "Shadow Flights," Dick van der Aart's "Aerial Espionage" and I think it may have been mentioned briefly in one of Chris Pocock's books.

But the clincher to me that it was flown is in a book called "Big Safari" by Colonel Bill Grimes. Big Safari is a USAF procurement program and partnership between the military (mostly USAF) and private contractors. It is dedicated exclusively to the management of reconnaissance assets (mostly USAF, but not all) and it operates outside of the typical USAF acquisitions so it doesn't have to worry about the bureaucratic red tape and political wrangling as is typically seen with other programs. Grimes worked in that office for decades first for the Air Force and later as a civilian program manager. The book covers the history of the projects the program managed from the 1950s to 2002 (Big Safari continues to this day, but a lot of that work remains classified). Typically Big Safari would get a tasking, draw up the specs for the aircraft and/or system needed and give the specs to one of their Detachments at the contractor offices who would build and/or modify the hardware in quick fashion, delivering it on time and on (or below) budget with no problems.

Some of their more famous projects are the RC-135V/W Rivet Joint, The Cobra Ball and Cobra Eye RC-135s, the C-130 Combat Talon, The IAF's F-4E "Peace Jack" recon system, the RQ-1/MQ-1 Predator system (which transferred to a different management in 2005 when the drones were considered to be fully operational in 2005) and a system called Rover, which allowed boots on the ground to see the overhead feed that a Predator was seeing. Rover eventually evolved into the Rover 3 system that allowed ground troops to see the LANTIRN imagery feed from F-14 Bombcats during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The Big Safari book mentions an RB-57A program called SHARP CUT which utilized a unique and specially developed 240 inch oblique camera mounted in the bomb bay of the aircraft. Prior to its use in SHARP CUT in 1957, the camera was loaned to the RAF for use in a Canberra in a program known as Project ROBIN (although the overflight may not necessarily have been connected directly to Robin as those sorties were flown in 1954). According to Bill (who would have had the ability to research this when he worked for Big Safari), this camera was used for the Kapustin Yar overflight mission in 1953. Other books and articles mention that the camera used for Robin was a K-30 100 inch focal length camera. This is the first book to say with certainty it was the 240" unit, which was apparently one of a kind (although perhaps the K-30 formed the basis of this special camera). The main reason why Robin was discontinued is the U-2 made the RAF periphery flights obsolete, but the camera itself was too big to fit inside a U-2 and the USAF made the decision to mount it in one of their own RB-57s.

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On 27 septembre 2016 at 4:45 AM, JMChladek said:

The USAF NEVER attempted to do an overflight of China or the USSR with an SR-71 because that is not their mission tasking. Even during the time of U-2 operations, the USAF's U-2 fleet only did flights along the border. Once in awhile a U-2 might stray over Soviet airspace, but not intentionally and otherwise they kept to the 12 mile international border limit.

 

Really?

Then flight over France were a different story, as at some time in the sixties, U-2 (flying from the UK, I presume?) used to fly along the Rhône valley where the first nuclear plants were build.

That is, before those flights were intercepted by Mirage III (One interception is well documented, and I believe there were a few more), as they stopped thereafter... For a few years only, as the next visitor was the SR-71, against which we had no defenses.

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