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Description of  Foxbat Tales: The MiG-25 in Combat

From the Middle East to the Iron Curtainthe definitive combat history of the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25. 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-25purportedly capable of outrunning and outmaneuvering any aircraft in NATOs inventory. Yet even before its public appearance in Moscow, the MiG-25 had been a grave concern for Western analysts. Indeed, this new interceptor could fly at speeds in excess of Mach 3 and cruise at altitudes heretofore deemed unreachable for a tactical fighter. Moreover, NATOs intelligence community was baffled by how the Soviet Union had cobbled together such a "masterpiece" of modern engineering. The reality, however, was that this "interceptor" was a poorly-designed airframe with an oversized motor. Although it excelled as a reconnaissance aircraft, it fared poorly as a dogfighter and it was typically the loser when pitted against Western aircraft like the F-14 Tomcat and F-15 Eagle. From the Sinai Peninsulato the Soviet-Afghan Warto Operation Desert Storm, is the definitive operational and combat history of the MiG-25. Read more