Forum: Military Aircraft of the Cold War

TEG speaks the truth, in order for a MiG 25 to intercept an SR-71, it would have to be detected at one end of Russia and the MiG would need to be scrambled at the other in order to get enough height and speed to be close enough to even lob a missile. Now, these are assuming the declassified numbers (lol), ya know, 80k feet, 3.5M. What the actual numbers are, well I sure as hell don't know and no one will be able to speak them for another 30 years I believe.

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TEG,

Just about everything about the A-12 was recently declassified and is available for public perusal at the CIA FOIA Reading Room - http://www.foia.cia.gov/a12oxcart.asp I've talked to some of the pilots who had the A-12 up to 90,000 feet and Mach 3.5 Smile

The A-12 was faster and flew higher than the SR-71 as it was lighter and a bit smaller. With the limiting factor for speed being the engine inlet temperature (427 degrees Celsius IIRC), it could cruise at Mach 3.2, but reached speeds quite a bit higher in flight test.

Of course, the SR-71 pilot's manual is online as well these days - http://www.sr-71.org/blackbird/manual/

Basically, the MiG-25 wouldn't have a chance if the Blackbird pilot decided the engines were expendable Cool

I know an old Eagle driver that was involved in running intercepts on the SR. With the Sled going M3+, and the Eagle doing M1.5+, the closure rates were huge (duh!). Bottom line: he said is was very difficult, and a low percent chance of success.

Huggy,

If the Mach 4.5+ closure rate wasn't bad enough, just imagine what kind of a problem you'd have otherwise. If the Blackbird pilot decided to turn, he could very easily mess up the intercept solution for the fighter just because of the distance he'd put between them. Even if a jet were going Mach 2 at the Blackbird's six, he'd still have problems with reduced weapons range. I mean, the Blackbird would be opening the distance from the fighter at Mach 1 which would lead to its being out of weapons range very quickly even if the fighter got there in the first place. Add to that the fact that the Blackbird would probably be above the fighter which would reduce effective weapons range even further.

A low percent chance of success indeed Smile

I've had more than one "Target Arm" explain to me that the Foxbat could only reach Mach 3 for a couple of minutes, and that the Foxbat would usually burn its engines up when it would reach that speed. It certainly could not give chase to a Sled. The Sled could, of course, sustain Mach 3+, and by the time the Foxbat was alerted to the SR's presence, and they scrambled, it was really too late. The SR would already be on its way back to Mildie, or The Double Z.

Forum: Military Aircraft of the Cold War

The Blackbird