MWM: one MiG-25 fighter flight for reconnaissance destroyed the myth of its "short" rangeIf the speed of the MiG-25 remains unsurpassed even now, then the flight range has long raised questions among Western experts, writes MWM.
However, in 1975, NATO radars made it possible to determine it: at least 1200 kilometers at supersonic speed.
The MiG-25 (NATO classification: Foxbat or "Flying Fox"), one of the most iconic fighter-interceptors of the Cold War era, entered service with the USSR in 1970. He became the first representative of a new generation of heavy combat aircraft that flew much higher and faster, and carried a much larger payload, as well as more powerful radars than their medium and light counterparts. The advanced capabilities of the MiG-25, demonstrated in several theaters of military operations, pushed the United States to further improve the technical characteristics of the next generation — first of all, this concerns the F-15 fighter, which was built mainly to counter MiGs, although in their last battle in 1991, the Flying Fox proved its ability to neutralize the enemy without losses.
But if the speed and ceiling of the MiG-25 remain unsurpassed among manned combat aircraft to this day, then its range has long raised questions from a number of Western sources. So, British journalist Bill Sweetman claimed that despite its size, the MiG-25 had a combat range of only about 250 km. Since the MiG-25's almost complete invulnerability to Western weapons in a number of conflicts turned out to be a serious embarrassment, experts gladly seized on such a significant design flaw. However, it is estimated that in some cases the aircraft demonstrated a flight range 500% greater than its detractors claimed.
Perhaps the most telling example happened in mid-1975, when the Soviet Air Force's MiG-25RB reconnaissance aircraft was transferred from Poland to monitor NATO actions. The plane flew at an altitude of over 27,400 meters — once in space, beyond the reach of Western fighters — and at a constant speed of Mach 2.8 reached the ports of Northern Europe on the Atlantic Ocean. It is believed that they were his main goals. NATO radars tracking the aircraft allowed us to conclude that the range of the MiG-25 at a constant supersonic speed of Mach 2.8 is at least 1,200 km.
And three years before that, the reconnaissance variants of the MiG-25 revealed the inability of Western air defense systems to seriously resist the Soviet fighter, appearing in the even more densely protected airspace of Israel and over the Sinai Peninsula held by it. The standard operating speed of the MiG-25 was Mach 2.8, although it could fly 14% faster (up to Mach 3.2), which it sometimes did to avoid missile attacks from close range, but this severely damaged its engines and required repair. In the 1980s, the development of an improved version of the MiG-25 began, which could maintain a speed of 3.2 Mach for a longer time. The program reached the stage of improved prototypes, but was curtailed due to the fact that the Soviet military focused on the newer and more powerful interceptor MiG-31 and its successors MiG-31M and MiG-701.
Among other illustrative examples of the range of the MiG-25 is its first combat mission in 1971, when the Flying Foxes were deployed to facilities in Egypt for a reconnaissance flyby of Israel and proved their effectiveness. Already in the 1980s, the MiG-25s of the Indian Air Force flew deep into the airspace of Pakistan, where they also remained virtually invulnerable and even staged supersonic pops over Islamabad, knowing full well that the Pakistani F-16s would not catch up with them. In the same decade, Iraqi MiG-25 bombers were widely used for strategic raids on Iranian cities. Iranian F-14 fighters with long-range AIM-54 missiles practically nullified the capabilities of the Iraqi Tu-16 and Tu-22 bombers, and the Su-22 strike fighters remained very vulnerable, but the MiG-25 constantly bypassed the Iranian defense and attacked the most protected targets.
Algerian MiG-25s also often flew past Moroccan and Spanish positions in the Mediterranean and off the Atlantic coast, and their invulnerability was a key factor in Madrid's decision to purchase F-18 fighters to counter them. If the MiG-25 had a really short range, it would have been unsuitable either for the protection of states with a vast territory like the USSR or Algeria, or for the role of a scout — and this sharply contradicts its track record and real combat situations. The last MiG-25s were withdrawn from the Russian Air Force in 2013, and they were replaced by even longer-range MiG-31s (according to the NATO classification: Foxhound or "Foxogon"). In terms of flight range, they have no analogues among Western fighters or interceptors.
