SR-71 Interceptions

I read a book debrief in AFM describing 2 books adjacent to each other, one was about the MiG-31 Foxhound, and the other was about the SR-71, both seem to talk about in their pages about how there was at least one occation on which the Foxhound successfully intercepted a Blackbird and how they drove it to abandond its mission in one book, the other talks via the words of a Major Mikhail Myagkiy(retrd) who himself participated in one interception mission of an SR-71 on August 21, 1984. He even described the procedures taken when intercepting the blackbird revealng the Soviet's quest in shooting a Blackbird.

So does anybody can confirm this, did the blackbird get intercepted? if so how many times? was anyone shot at? or shot down(HAHHAHAHA, that I won't believe)?

Obviously it is just a rumour and therefore baseless..Otherwise,the Soviets would have made a big deal out of this as they did when they shot down Gary Powers U-2 in May 1960.No aircraft can cruise at 90.000 feet with Mach +3,2 for more than an hour with afterburners. I myself read somewhere a report about a Blackbird flying at 110.000 feet with Mach 3.42 in secret mission over Tripoli in 1986 soon after the bombings.Kelly Johnsson,the father of the SR-71 has confirmed in an interview that Blackbird was capable of reaching this altitude with M 3.5 and even more..
Such parameters are beyond the reach of Mig-31 or any other interceptor,Russian or American.

But these are from 2 different books, these are written by:

- Yefim Gordon
- Paul F Crickmore

But these are from 2 different books

Don't believe everything you read, especially in books when sometimes the authors choose to "change" few things that will sell their products.

Foxhound successfully intercepted a Blackbird and how they drove it to abandond its mission in one book, the other talks via the words of a Major Mikhail Myagkiy(retrd) who himself participated in one interception mission of an SR-71 on August 21, 1984. He even described the procedures taken when intercepting the blackbird revealng the Soviet's quest in shooting a Blackbird.

Karim, that seems to be true. Until proven otherwise.

I picked up a magazine today" Combat Aircraft" which had about 10 pages just on the latest Mig 31P. It also talked about how Mig 31s intercepted the Sr71, a number of times. The first time was in 1984, and the next was in 86.

True, or not true? Who knows, the Mig 31 is capable of doing it, I believe.

This has been covered in another thread. However, since the subject was brought up, I'll appease the class...

The Foxhound can't fly as fast as the Blackbird. The Blackbird can cruise in afterburner. The Foxhound can only reach its top speed (Mach 2.83) in a short dash before the engines begin to burn up. By the time they figured out the Blackbird was coming, had scrambled the Foxhounds, the Foxhounds had been vectored by GCI, and had reached an altitude where they had even a remote chance to see the Blackbird's contrails, the Blackbird was LONG gone.

SRs might have taken an alternate route to stay away from the range of MiG bases, but no SR was ever intercepted, or shot down.

Sounds like the Russian major had a good vodka-induced fish story there.

You know this information how?

Wouldn't you like to know?

Seriously though, the data on the Foxhound, and the combat record of the Blackbird is all public record. Also, I suggest Ben Rich's "Skunk Works", Col. Richard Graham's "SR-71 Revealed", and John Barron's "MiG Pilot".

We never lost an SR-71 to hostile action, and Belenko confirmed that as soon as the MiGs got to an intercept altitude, they arrived just in time to see the Blackbird streak past. The Foxbat and Foxhound were both very ineffective against the Blackbird. After Victor Belenko defected, we figured out just what a POS the MiG-25 really was, and just how much we had over-designed the F-15 to counter a perceived superior threat.

Beers and MiGs were made to be pounded!

After Victor Belenko defected, we figured out just what a POS the MiG-25 really was, and just how much we had over-designed the F-15 to counter a perceived superior threat.

Lt.Victor Belenko was full of sh*t. He only said what we wanted him to say. In other words, a very bad source of information. If you read his book, he says that he could never get the Mig 25 to go supersonic,etc. And when he was interviewed by us, he said that he flew to Japan only on full afterburner. Sounds like a big contridiction.

Personnaly I would not trust anything that he says, how can you respect a man that decieves his own country. He took an oath, and he broke the oath.

Ducatist wrote:Personnaly I would not trust anything that he says, how can you respect a man that decieves his own country. He took an oath, and he broke the oath.

So we should quit recruiting foreign agents to spy for the US because we can't trust them as they're deceiving thier own countries and breaking their oaths ? Without human intelligence assets, we'd be hosed - look how far we're sliding downhill now that we're relying on satellites so heavily. You can't get a good read on what the other guy's thinking by looking at pictures...

Personally I would not trust anything that he says, how can you respect a man that deceives his own country. He took an oath, and he broke the oath.

So if a man is living in a country that is controlled by Pinko "Foxtrot Alpha Gulf’s" that want to oppress their people and the rest of the world. He has the courage to leave that type of environment to be free and work against communism… You don’t respect that?

So you are saying blindly and without morals follow the leadership of anyone running the country you just happened to be born in?

I kinda thought that’s how the US got started, by people called traitors that didn’t like their previous leaders and the monarchy.

So if a man is living in a country that is controlled by Pinko "Foxtrot Alpha Gulf’s" that want to oppress their people and the rest of the world. He has the courage to leave that type of environment to be free and work against communism… You don’t respect that?

The same thing can be said about our leadership, that we want to put our type of government into other peoples lives around the world. NSA, etc.

I did study abroad during college in Moscow, and none of the people that I talked to described Soviet life in the way he has. I take it from them. You have to look at it this way, what Belenko said was a tool for us to use against the Soviets. "Well look here ladies and gents we have Soviet Unions finest telling us that they Russians are such demons,etc". See what Im saying? It played to our timely advantage. You remember Chalabi, he was a big reason for why we went into Iraq. "I know that Iraq has WMD, beleive me Mr Bush" Ok, I beleive you. Chalabi was later denounced by Bush himself, as a liar.

It was his choice to do what he did. Hope everything is fine for him.

One thing I find interesting is that Belenko called the Mig 25 a POS, and our/foreighn military analysts still today call it a very lethal/capable jet. So who do you believe?

parrothead wrote:

Ducatist wrote:Personnaly I would not trust anything that he says, how can you respect a man that decieves his own country. He took an oath, and he broke the oath.

So we should quit recruiting foreign agents to spy for the US because we can't trust them as they're deceiving thier own countries and breaking their oaths ? Without human intelligence assets, we'd be hosed - look how far we're sliding downhill now that we're relying on satellites so heavily. You can't get a good read on what the other guy's thinking by looking at pictures...

Well, that was The Idiot Clinton's motto. Once John Deutsch became DCI, they instituted a policy forbidding CIA from paying off anyone associated human rights abuses... brilliant..

Belenko provided a lot of good intel on Soviet hardware, but a lot of that is still protected by OPSEC. And a lot of what he said, despite initial skepticism, was proven to be quite accurate from other sources...

was proven to be quite accurate from other sources...

Such as?

Actually what Belenko provided was allot of press glory, thats about it. In his own book, he says that his knowledge of Soviet hardware was very minimal, due to the restrictions/control that was placed upon service people by the high brass. Remember Soviets were all about control, its what defined them.

Uh...AC?...Shev, is that you?

I'm confused here. So, the Sovs were either a controlling, oppressive people, or they were great folks to hang out and study with. Which is it? You can't have it both ways.

I'm not sure that Belenko said that the Foxbat was a bad jet. Rather, we found out that the Foxbat was nowhere near the jet we thought it was, and that we had actually over-designed the F-15 in order to counter it.