The MIG 25 was an interceptor built to chase nuclear bombers during a nuclear war not to dogfight fighter planes. It was built to get high fast and had vacuum tubes instead off microchips because tubes can resist and EMP from a nuclear explosion. It was a doomsday fighter.
It doesn't really matter. US for nearly 10 years, thought that USSR had a better plane :D Disinformation was a better tool in cold war, than a fighter plane.
@@katt_reviews Out of the 2 that I have seen, all of the sources they had were the people that were actually doing what they were talking about, whether that was flying planes or maintaining them.
Soviet-era brute force approach to everything is incredible to think about. Everything they did was brutal, overbuilt, and designed to be made quickly, cheaply, and easily maintained or replaced. I remember reading a story of American pilots in shock at a Russian airforce base, as they saw worked uses sled hammers to beat the ice off the fighter jet wings. The Russian pilots then jumped in and took off as if nothing happened.
Honestly It's still misunderstood today. I think there is a general idea, or at least there certainly was back in the 1980s and 1990s that I remember of Soviet equipment being "cheap" or "crude." However Soviet design and engineering was far from crude, it was just designed with a different approach and philosophy in mind. They learned allot of lessons in WW2 that the US and Britain never really did, when it came to ruggedness and the necessity of makeshift airfields. Also the mass production aspect of Soviet designs is very important, take the F-4 Phantom vs the MiG-21, The F-4 Phantom was arguably superior in most respects to the MiG however there is a cost effectiveness and production aspect that can not at all be dismissed when comparing the two aircraft. I would take 3-4 MiG-21 over a single slow expensive to produce F-4, and the MiG was no underperformer considering the top ACE's of the Vietnam war flew the MiG-21, and no Phantom pilot achieved similar success in their "superior" aircraft.
In fact this brute force is not true. * For example compared to the mechanically steered radar of F-14 + insanely expensive active radar guided AIM-54 the MiG-31 got PESA radar and SARH guided R-33. * The first SAM with PESA radar was the S-300PT in 1978 which solved many issues and was a first multi target channel SAM in the world with a single antenna because it was PESA. Now let's see just the US planes, their weight is indicative. * F-4 Phantom II ~14 tons while the rest of the world (except PVO fighters for homeland air defense against bombers) remained at 7-9 tons level. * F-14, 20 tons. A fighter which was keeping in mind ad dogfight. With a 20 tons plane because of the requested features in a single plane. * Only with 25% titanium ration in airframe reached the 12.5 tons EW the F-15A. If the ration of titanium had been only 10% as in any other aircraft, it would have been just as heavy as the F-4... Too many ppl. has quite false stereotypical ideas about how the Soviets thought.
Reminds me of that passage in Ignition!: "The US invested heavily in advanced rocket fuels. But if Ivan wants more thrust, he just builds a bigger rocket."
@@militavia-air-defense-aircraft No no I am not saying by brute force it means their engineering was dumb or unskilled. For example, look at the current rocket programme which is still highly successful today. American scientists will double the size of the rocket motors to double the payload. The Russians will simply add double the number of rocket motors. Both get the same result just in different ways.
@@Thatswildpimp I can not exsactly remember where I saw/read this story. It was a recount of a Russian airbase where the MIGs were stored outside during the winter. The planes had something like a inch of ice on the wings. Some American pilots that were visiting the base. They were in shock about how the Russian pilots just left their jets outside in the elements. The stories goes the ground crew started beating the wings with hammers, mallets, and sledge hammers. Here is a link to another documentary that shows Russian vs American airbases. ua-cam.com/video/814kuAcpemY/v-deo.html&ab_channel=SessomAsia After seeing the base and setup, it's not far-fetched of a story.
I was lucky to sit in one of these planes wen I was 5-6 years old,there was 3 of these in my hometown air base back in the day… you guys cannot understand from this video how large that plane is , a grown man can walk straight into the intake of the engine.great video man , thank u
Videos never do justice for how large fighter aircraft are. You always expect bombers to be gigantic but it always blows my mind how big even the fighter jets are. I’ve been to the Dayton Air Force museum a lot and you can’t even comprehend how big jets like the f-15, f-22, etc.. actually are until you’re right by them
I was awestruck when I walked up to a f15 in person. Worked on them for 4 years, and still every day id look at it and wonder how the ever living fuck it managed to get off the ground. Even seeing them fly at low altitude is just mind blowing.
US: plans to build the Valkyrie Soviet: builds incredible numbers of single-purpose high-performence Interceptors US: cancels the Valkyrie Soviet: you moth....
US: Play video tape sending people to the moon.. Soviet: Try everything to go catch-up until all money and resources depleted US: Fool Soviet: you moth....
@Abhijeet Kundu looks like they were afraid of wrong thing. They protected agains birds but single rpg Javelin NLaw or whatever can destroy it to pieces
@@zacharyradford5552 yes, it's poor. But at least the Soviets don't give up. Literally also went on to earn to set 9 World Records for flying the highest altitude at 123,520 feet. How about the XB-70 programme terminated after a mid-air during the promo flight on june 8, 1966?
@@mrnorthz9373 the US also went to develop the F15 variants including the "E" variants and as well as the F15ex variants, but according to the Wikipedia, it was introduced into July this year, and the first flight was on 2nd February 2021
The Eagles specs were in part based on intelligence (or lack thereof). But the bigger issue was how quickly the F-15 was put into service based on the perceived need to counter the Mig 25. I think if we had known the true specs on a Mig 25 - we still get the Eagle but it takes a few more years to get through development and become operational.
In the words of the timeless Discovery Wings on the MiG-25: “The design of the MiG-25 was directed entirely at achieving high speed and high altitude. It was not meant to be maneuverable. It was not meant to have good low speed performance. It was simply meant to travel through the air as fast as Soviet ingenuity could make it go.”
Exactly, it was dumbbb for some Westerners to think the Mig-25 was shhtttt simply because of what their standards of a "jet fighter" was and glancing at the facts about what this plane was meant to do. It's like complaining why a Ford Transit can't handle turns like say a Ferrari or Lamborghini
@@dickmelsonlupot7697 I mean it's not even like this was a difference in doctrine, in the last generation the US built the F-4 which was heavy as shit and maneuvered like a brick and was also initially built to only carry missiles. Meanwhile the Soviet Union built the Mig-21 which was ridiculously maneuverable and was armed with guns from the start. It's just that both the F-4 and the Mig-25 were interceptors and that design necessarily requires compromising on other factors. I think because of the superficial similarity to the plans the west had for their own fighter they just got mislead into thinking that it was something it wasn't and they never really reconsidered.
@@hedgehog3180 though somewhat similar, in practice and in when being detailed, both are very different. the thing with Russian vs American jets is that Russian jets tend to be more land-based while American jets almost always needs to be carrier based or the very least be easy to transport. And in regards to the American or even Western mentality goes, the West were generally too over their heads especially Europe and even the general American public (asides from maybe the top brass). It's all propaganda against the "communist" threat where America and the West fail to see the hubris in their "fight for democracy". Much like how the Vietnam War would have been avoided if America just took the time to listen to Ho Chi Minh and just realize he and his Viet Minh were communist in name only
The 1960s British "English Electric Lightning" was also a purpose-built interceptor with an outrageous climb speed ("standing on its tail") and initially armed only with two Red Top air to air missiles. But that plane could reach and catch a U2 spyplane, though the US denied it for years.
Guys, nothing personal - just physics. Thin air on high altitudes significally reduces the aerodynamic force needed for maneureing, and trying to sharp turn at great speed will cause unbearable g-force.
Except the engine part. The low life span is misunderstood by the masses. It was incrementally increased as experience gathered by the very short interval inspections. The inspection time simply was interpreted by the dumb media badly.
Nobody thought the Mig-25 was made for dogfighting. Even in the late 60s people knew that dogfighting wasnt the future of air combat, but rather BVR missiles. Idk why people keep using that term. The US assumed the Mig-25 was made to be a high speed, high altitude missile lobber. So they were scared because this aircraft could fly higher and faster than most else, dropping missiles on their jets from a superior positoin.
@@sheek3222 The kind of mach 2 bomber the Mig-25 was made to counter never really materialized. The american B1-Lancer can hardly even go supersonic, and it was just a downgraded stop gap measure to deal with B2-delays.
When I was a kid, I had a book of fighter jets. It wasn't a kid's book, it was really quite a dry listing of a few technical details for each plane, accompanied by a small photo. I became truly obsessed with the Foxbat, simply because of all the planes in the book, it had the highest listed top speed. Nevertheless, just because of that, and the small, blurry photo, I still remember it clearly, well over 3 decades later.
@@mayabartolabac I couldn't actually remember off the top of my head, but to my surprise a Google search came up with the answer immediately. I actually had two books, The Observer's Book of Aircraft and The Observer's Book of Civil Aircraft of Australia and New Zealand. I found the first one much more interesting, it had fighter jets in it :P And yeah, in retrospect I misremembered about it being a book of fighter jets, it did have a lot of other planes as well.
Now imagine being the guys at the Pentagon who had to analyze every last grainy detail of those photographs just to make sense of that plane. It must’ve been the CIA’s worst nightmare at that time.
Being an engineer myself, I can only imagine the anguish of the Soviet engineers and scientists when they would have realized that their years of calculations and iterations were compromised by a defector o.O
Not as much as US engineers realizing that am EMP pulse would burn out integrated circuits and ground every US aircraft with them. The Foxbat didn't use those 'new' circuits and would have been unaffected.
Not quite. See, the mig-25 was becoming rather old, as the defector ran away 10 years later after its introduction. In a way, its defection helped the soviet union understand that its jet was to prevent a threat that did not exist, by reading US medias. The US also did not gain much technology by looking at the mig-25, as globally, the soviet union was rather behind.
@@latengocomoburro The afghan army mostly had outdated US equipment. Also the US army wasn't really here, the US was just supporting Afghanistan from offshore. Also, the afghan army may not have repair parts, meaning everything they have will be useless within a few years...
Good on you for doing your research and showing that the Valkyrie was the catalyst of MiG-25's inception. A lot of people erroneously attribute it to the SR-71.
it is interesting to note the other popular myth about the SR-71 - that the MiG-31 was in fact absolutely capable of intercepting the Blackbird, and was part of the reason why the SR-71 never overflew the USSR.
And that is a VERY limited scenario. The real reason for the limitation of the Blackbird's surveillance of the USSR was rising tensions following the 1960 Gary Powers shootdown caused Eisenhower to enact a policy of no flyovers, which both Kennedy and Johnson carried on. Plus by that point satellites were operational and doing all the surveillance that was needed.
@@gluesniffingdude Lmfao you just changed it to MiG 31, fair enough I guess. But also important to point out by that time, there were SAMs that could intercept the A-12 too
@@Sammy-cq5gp I don't think even the SAM's operational during that period could intercept the SR-71, by the time the missiles would've reached that altitude it would manoeuvre away.
I remember when you posted a picture of the foxbat a while back and i immediately made it my lock screen, i just love the design and how everything flows so nicely.
The concept was an interceptor that could get to the intruder before the intruder got to the target. At that time the Soviets didn't have in-flight refueling and the 25 had to be big enough to carry its own fuel all the way to the intercept and back to base. A beautiful monster.
The Soviet Union was also massive but of course with large sparsely populated areas, they needed something to be able to fly vast distances to cover all their airspace.
Yes it point was to take down bomber quickly, that try come to Soviet Union to bomb Soviet Union and thats why it was so fast and could fly in so high altitude, so Americans thought it was absolute op aircraft jet, while it had many downsides for being able to be so fast and fly in so high altitude, when had so less fuel and could not actually turn around that well.
@@jout738 All military equipment have problems and are designed for specific practical missions. Anyone who ever served, knows that. Where the Soviets and Russians have always had advantage, is in practicality application on the battlefield.. that is because they use continuation in design, quick flexible repairs near battlefield, inexpensive production but very solid, tough and tested in battles, from top to bottom.. paying close attention to regidity. Also, their engineers are Soviet/Russian born and educated, trained with much wider scope of sciences and mechanical engineering..unlike western ones, who depend on importing brain power, for specific projects. Soviet designs are legendary..many US commanders have stated that, over a long period of time.. That's why we still talk about Migs designed in the 60's and still used today.. Simply incredible.
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@@rosszografov614 American imports of experts is an advantage, not a disadvantage. USSR is doomed to lose due to this
I actually have the plastic scale model kit of the MiG-25, bought around 1980 & put together in that same time frame & I still have it to this day. I don't remember the kit maker brand, I might have to research that since I probably don't have the kit box of it anymore. I have a few other jet fighter scale kits, including the F-104 Starfighter & F-4 Phantom, again all of these built back then 4 decades ago, including having kept the cardboard kit boxes but I think I probably don't have the box for the MiG, I would have to look around in my closets.
Lt. Viktor Belenko's defection to the West is a rather interesting story in itself, not just for the delivery of a MiG-25 largely intact to Western intelligence, but also his personal experience before, during, and after his defection. While the basics of Belenko's defection is outlined well in the video, one thing I wanted to add was that after he managed to stop the MiG at Hakodate Airport (which had a runway that was at least a third shorter than what Belenko was used to landing MiG-25s on), he took out his pistol and fired off several warning shots at pedestrians that had gathered near the plane in order to keep them from taking pictures. After having made such a remarkable landing, he was running on instinct and his training in maintaining military secrecy kicked in; additionally, he was waiting for American officials to arrive and examine the plan, not Japanese civilians. If anyone is curious about Belenko and his defection, I highly recommend the book "MiG Pilot," by John Barron, which covers all of that, as well as Belenko's life in the Soviet Union and in the United States.
One thing that you can guarantee with just about all Soviet engineering is that they found a way to achieve impressive specifications using relatively simplistic materials and techniques. I remember reading a story how in the 1975 joint US-Soviet Soyuz/Apollo mission, the Soviet cosmonaut purchased a hunting knife at Baikonur before boarding his space shuttle "just in case" he needed it to help fix something. Turned out the TV/monitor in the Soyuz was installed incorrectly, and rather than aborting launch, he just fixed it in space - not even with the knife, but having used his teeth to strip the wires that needed to be reconnected!
The Valkyririe was a mastyery of engineering. The Foxbat was the the monstrous counterpart. Those engines. That payload. What an achievement. Phenomenal engineering.
@@chuckkline2970 And the video is clearly inaccurate. Mustard has some great videos, and his information is typically comprehensive, but even gets it wrong sometimes. You don't have trust me over Mustard, just look at the facts. The B-70 bomber program was the result of the 2nd WS-110 competition of 1957. The Russians were already working on the Ye-150 family of high speed aircraft by then, and Mikoyan was assigned the devellopment of the airplane that became the MiG-25 in 1961. Kennedy cancelled the B-70 bomber program on March 28, 1961, no more than 2 months after work began on the MiG-25. The Soviets continued developing the MiG-25 over the decade, even repeated attempts to re-start the B-70 were thwarted, even after USAF began design stufies like SLAB and similar programs - some of them calling for a mach 2 airplane, some subsonic, pretty much all low-altitude, quite unlike the B-70. The XB-70, a research aircraft which carried less fuel than originally designed for the B-70, and having no combat systems, was rolled-out in May of 1964 - the MiG-25 had already flown the previous March, a response to an airplane that didn't even exist. The Soviets continued developing the MiG-25 for serial production, even after production of Valkyries was cut back to 2, even after 1 of them was lost in an accident, and never replaced. In early 1969, the sole surviving XB-70A was flown to WPAFB, its last flight. The MiG-25 went operational with VVS later that year, and a few years after that with PVO - the Soviet force dedicated to air defense, again in response to an aircraft that did not exist. In short, the timeline makes it clear that the Soviets began their efforts at high-speed interceptors before the B-70 was initiated, and spent most of their time on the MiG-25 well after it was cancelled. Clearly, the 2 aircraft are only incidentall connected, if at all.
You're right that Mustard is a great example of it, but not the only. I'd like to introduce you to LEMMiNO: ua-cam.com/users/LEMMiNO and XboxAhoy: ua-cam.com/users/XboxAhoy
It was able to turn. Proof is that airforces around the world used it for much lower altitude interceptors and for dogfights. It's just it was not exceptional at it.
The MiG-25's maneuverability wasn't actually particularly limited by its aerodynamics and lift-to-weight. While the manual's figure is a paltry 4.5g, this actually because the plane began to suffer risk of aerodynamic issues due to wing flexing; the wings would flex enough beyond this to incur a risk of aileron reversal, although this would not result in airframe damage, simply making the aircraft more difficult to fly. A MiG-25 at one point accidentally pulled 11.5G in a dogfight training mission, giving some sense to the scale of which it was technically capable of maneuvering. Pulling the aircraft this hard did incur some damage to wing spars, but did not result in a loss of control or failure of the structure. At high altitudes and speeds, the MiG-25 was actually pretty great in terms of maneuverability; pulling those same 4.5gs at mach 2.3 at 15,000 meters is something not a lot of planes can do today, much less back then. On the issue of speed, the main reason the engines weren't built to exceed mach 2.8 was that mach 2.8 was the maximum speed of the interceptor version while carrying a full load of missiles. Thus there was no reason at the time to build it to go any faster, as it'd only be capable of doing so with a clean wing and no drop tanks, which it was never expected to use in service. It was only after building the lower drag recon variant that the issue of overspeeding the engines became apparent Another interesting note, the MiG-25's ease of conversion into a bomber was directly tied to the sheer size of the air to air missiles. A MiG-25B with a full bombload of 500kg bombs had about the same weight and drag as a MiG-25P with a full load of missiles, allowing it to reach the same astonishing heights and speeds as the interceptor while carrying strike ordnance
Yup, all good points. Soviet engineers had no idea how to control the flutter beyond 4.5G on something made out of glorified stainless steel. On the other hand, pulling 4.5G at beyond M2.0 at the thin atmosphere up in FL500 is still an astonishing feat til this very day.
Lots of old misconceptions in this video. It basically regurgitates old western propaganda about the aircraft. For example, implying that the stainless steel was obsolete for a mach 3 aircraft, while omitting that the same material was used on the B-70 Valkyrie. Not to mention that, a large combat aircraft of the same size, the F-111, weights the about the same as the MiG and it is made out of aluminium. Another old misconception, is that it was wrong of the Soviets to built it since the primary treat, the B-70, was canceled, while there were "only a few reconnaissance aircraft" to worry about. Well, the Mach 3 SR-71 was out there flying missions wasn't it? Also, the Mach 2 B-58 and Mirage IV were also serious treats that a MiG-21 would have a hard time with, not to mention the then new F-111. All of those look like a good reason to have the MiG-25 to me.
Algeria retired its fleet of mig 25s last year after an airshow over the capital city. They were mostly used as recon and reportedly penetreted Morocco's air space repeatedly during the 70s and 80s
India retired its fleet in 2006. Till then it never acknowledged the fighters presence in IAF. Only a handful of pilots and officers knew of their existence.
The sheer amount of Hard work that Mustard puts in each and every video is truly unthinkable. Thats the reason we wait for such a long time just to watch a single video. But the Quality always remains top notch ! Hope this channel gets millions of subscribers in order to appreciate the quality of this channel.
@@seancagney1369 yeah as a kid I would make plastic models of the Mig 29. People get too nationalistic about their planes. I’m an American but I have always admired Russian aviation.
One of the reason why the MiG-25's radar is so powerful is that it uses vacuum tubes instead of transistors and integrated circuits. They did this because vacuum tubes are less susceptible to interference from the EMP of nuclear weapons and NATO electronic warfare capabilities. In the Persian Gulf War, a significant number of air-to-air missiles fired by the Iraqis against Coalition planes were launched from MiG-25s. These planes were one of the few types that has a radar powerful enough to burn through Coalition ECM.
The radar was powerful, but did not have target selection against the background of the earth. The 6C33C valve known to all audiophiles, was developed to stabilize the current in the early modifications of MIGs. :)
The main reason the MiG 25's radar was valve-powered was it fitted with an updated version of the Smerch-A radar fitted to the earlier Tupovlev TU-28P. They did this in order to save time & development costs. It was also ideal for its role of intercepting high-fling bombers, which is all it was intended to do. The higher resistance to EMP was, merely, an unplanned for bonus. Another reason valves were chosen were their higher resistance to the extreme heating the radar would endure at high-supersonic speeds, negating the need for a heavy/complex cooling system in the plane's avionics bay. But the "real" factor, under-pinning everything was the moribund state of the Soviet electronics manufacturing at the time. The were very far behind by the US by the mid-60s & when they did finally develop solid-state radars by the early-mid 70s they suffered so many manufacturing issues that the early Safir-23 radars fitted to MiG-23s had service lives measured in hours & often deviated from their stated range by a factor of ten.
Even the MiG-3 was exceptional in WW2 just underappreciated because it wasn't suited for the way the war developed since it was designed as a high altitude long range fighter, and Russia needed short range low altitude dogfighters, due to the quickly moving and close range of front line airfields and low altitude nature of Soviet ground attack tactics and close air support of troops on the ground on the Eastern Front. The MiG-3 would have been exceptionally good as a escort fighter like the British and Americans needed early on, that led to the development of the P-51.
Actually nope. The MiG bureau since MiG-31 did not designed a successful fighter. Nope, the MiG-29 family is anything but successful but somehow most of ppl. fail to recognize this. The MiG-29 9.12 and 9,.13 were the last planes which were produced really in greater qty. * These planes were laughably heavy compared to their limited range and loadout. * The MiG-29 9.12/13 were closer in range to MiG-21bis than MiG-23MF. Not the ML or MLD, to the heavier MF with worse engine. * The 11 ton MiG-29s had the same internal fuel as the F-16A Block 1 which was only 7.5 tons. * The F-16A had 4+4 wing and a CL station (hardpoint) while the MiG-29s only 3+3 and a CL. * The MiG-29 missed most of the new features even the F-16A Block 1 and it was pale in comparison with the F-16 Block 25. The Block 25 production started just a bit later when the MiG-29 9.12... Maybe one day I make a video about the tragic fate of the MiG-29 family.
Correction* 50% Fuselage 25% Wing 9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% Engine Also, guided by stalin's soul and made of stalinium
This beast I was taking about,.... the mig 25, I have seen this monster in person, it is huge,at the Air Force museum, thanks for serving Indian Air Force for more than 25+ years.👌👍
Engineer 1: "But comrade, we don't have the right turbojets for this plane!" Engineer 2: "🤔🤔🤔 ... there are some cruise missiles lying in the corner, why don't we take their jets!!" Engineer 1: "Brilliant idea, comrade!!!"
Mig 31 is its successor. I do love russian jets. The su-57 is a cool plane but my favourite had to he the mig31, simply cause of how high and how fast it can fly.
This is why I love Soviet engineers. Designing cutting-edge new jet engines is expensive and takes a long time. But re-using engines from a cruise missile to power an ultra-fast interceptor is kinda genius. Who cares about engine longevity if you can produce all the parts pretty cheaply, and your repair costs are offset by the fact you spent nothing on R&D for dedicated new ones?
That was the tactics they used in ww2 as well. Why build better tanks then german if you can build 100 times the amount they have in a shoy period of time
@@KaranSingh-jr2eu This is way oversimplified and more of a myth at that point. The Soviets were actually more advanced in production organization than Germany, because they had imported a lot of this knowledge from the world leader, the USA. Germany had an extremely inefficient system. Their military branches fought for resources, the military made production decisions and so on. The reason the Soviets produced very crude equipment is simply because most of their production lines weren't designed for anything complex (tractors and other simple equipment). If the production lines were adapted for tanks, they wouldn't have made them as crude and simple. The USA still outproduced everyone without making crude equipment for reference.
@@SKYNETcz The losses of the Soviets were mostly due to POWs being executed by Germany, if you account for POWs the difference isn't that big. The Soviets simply had efficient leadership while Germany's whole leadership structure was a dumpster fire.
In western 'popular mechanics' equivalent magazines, I read that American intelligence officers who flew over to examine the Mig-25 that landed in Japan, were rather disappointed, feeling that the Soviets were playing a trick on them. They suspected that the Soviets had sent a much downgraded version on purpose to frustrate their intelligence gathering. They couldn't believe this was the fabled Mig-25 super fighter jet that they had feared for so many years. Because of the steel that was used instead of titanium, Belenko's Mig showed some pretty noticeable spots of rust.
I've read a similar story in an aircraft magazine but with one important difference: that they were also perplexed how something this crude could still pull off these amounts of speed.
Something about the nickel steel's dark grey colour and all the welded seams, plus the bulk and the harsh shape are as brutalist, rough and extreme as it gets and I definitely love it. Nothing sleek, agile or beautiful about it - nothing like a Spitfire or even other jets. Reminds of me of a semi-apocalyptic Soviet alternate history, something out of a film or video game with exaggerated everything.
Fun fact: That pilot avoided media attention very well and declined every interview, all we have from him is an autobiography and a half drunk informal interview in a bar. During said interview he said he likes living in the USA, and enjoys how little people cared for what you think compared to that of the Soviet Union. He also said he visited Moscow once since he left, and states he lived in fear every day since his defection. He died in September 2023.
This is why I love how Xenonauts, an XCOM style game set in an alt Cold War used MiG-31’s (upgraded versions) with nuclear tipped missiles to allow for intercepting super fast UFO’s which makes a lot of sense as it’s one of the fastest fighters and equipping it with nuclear missiles is perfect for deleting UFOs
U can Kill Scout and other agile UFO with Mig if u mirco rockets manually. (Lock on. Fire 1st missle. Wait enemy starts dodging. Fire 2nd missle so AI never uses dodge again) But the game is average and too simplified no match for vanilla Xcom games
@@steelwind2334 Any civilization that would want us gone and has advanced enough to space travel and get here is more than likely vastly overpowers our combined military might due to the technological gap.
Don't think any plane so perfectly achieved its mission like the Mig25. It was in and of itself a powerfully fearsome deterrent for over a decade. I have no love for the Soviet Union but respect for their engineers given limited resources, pretty amazing stuff. You don't have to love your adversary to respect them either.
Over a decade? The plane went operational around 1970, maybe 5 years before the F-15 went into service, and 4 years before the F-14. What exactly did the MiG-25 deter?
@@cursedcliff7562 unlikely much of a deterrent, as usaf future plans called for low-altitude "penetration", where the MiG-25 had little of its high speed capabilities, and had no effective look-down/shoot-down capability.
Each Mustard upload is a minor event: no channel comes even close in quality of presentation and topics. My own channel may never be as good as this, but I'll keep doing the best I can :)
My dad was a MiG-25 pilot in the 102nd Squadron "The Trisonics" of the Indian Air Force. He was there in 1997 when an indian MiG-25 flew over pakistan's capital Islamabad at over Mach 2 generating a very loud sonic boom which was mistaken for a bomb blast. He told me that a few years later in England he met this pakistani gentleman who was in their air force and he distinctly remembered that day, he said that he thought now some Pakistani pilot is gonna get his ass kicked for flying supersonic over their capital, it was later that he found out that it was an indian MiG-25.
@@superamario6464 From wikipedia... "In May 1997, an Indian Air Force Mikoyan MiG-25RB reconnaissance aircraft created a furor when the pilot flew faster than Mach 3 over Pakistani territory following a reconnaissance mission into Pakistan airspace.[71] The MiG-25 broke the sound barrier while flying at an altitude of around 20,000 m (66,000 ft), otherwise the mission would have remained covert, at least to the general public. The Pakistani Government contended that the breaking of the sound barrier was a deliberate attempt to make the point that the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) had no aircraft in its inventory that could come close to the MiG-25's cruising altitude (up to 23,000 metres (74,000 ft))"
@@HarishKrishnan45 Not saying it's not true but Wikipedia is one of the worst source to refer. It's edited by anyone easily. It may have been occurred or not we don't know for sure.
My uncle served in ww2, took a German belt and knife off a dead German soldier. I got to examine it this year for the first time, the knife is extremely heavy, the belt is made of genuine leather. Though it deeply saddened me to know some young German boy lost his life. You could tell by how small the belt was buckled.
Lockheed YF-12 with AIM-47 Falcon flew 1963 so yeah... covertly buy titanium from the Soviet Union to build super secret aircraft to spy on the Soviet Union and its allies. Yo Joe!!!
The first thing I thought when this popped up in my feed: I hope he talks about the MIG-31 as well. I think you finally convinced me to join nebula with that tease
I remember sitting in one of these MIG-25 since my country was a very good ally of the Soviet Union, something which it has retained albeit with Russia. I must say that despite crew saying that it was 40 years old, it still had a very modern cockpit with missiles on the wings being Almost 3 times by height. The cockpit was very big and I estimate that it could fit a person 6'8" at the most. Also, the plane was very, very big. I have also been in the Sukhoi Su-30 and it's length was half of that of the MIG-25. The controls were also easy to understand and just like the AK, any one could use them.
The B-1 Lancer is actually also designed for high speed, high altitude missions, it's just that battle tactics & doctrines have changed & it is often forced into the low altitude intercept role that's taking its toll on the airframes.
Well, that and the fact that it could never meet performance targets because the intake design was fundamentally flawed by being 90 degrees to the wing, which allowed the inlet shock waves to rip into the wing boundary layer. This is detailed in a thread at PPRuNe.
Foxbat was one of my favourite plans when I was a teenager in my fighter jet phase, it was impressive speed and records and it looked cool to me as well
I saw these planes less than a year ago, causally sitting at Novosibirsk airport in Russia....you dont realize how enormous this plane is until you see it.
i always like to see the size of cockpit versus the whole plane.. that tells a lot aout the plane's real size. In Foxbat and Foxhound the cockpit really looks super-miniature in comparison to whole body.. where as if u look at other planes such as F-15, F-16 the ration is completely different
I remember as a kid in the 80's (10 - 11yo?) building a box set model kit I got for my birthday with a MiG-25 Foxbat and an F-15 Eagle combo inside, they were the pride of my model collection. (and the F-14 Tomcat too) lol
The low life span is misunderstood by the masses. It was incrementally increased as experience gathered by the very short interval inspections. The inspection time simply was interpreted by the dumb media badly.
@@christian9125abd Then they would lose, because you can't make triple the power from a 1.6L V6 without breaking the rules on peak fuel flow, total fuel load, or would be permanently at the back of the grid due to poor engine reliability.
A shame you didn't talk about the avionics. Because a head on interception of the X-70 would not allow enough time for a manual missile launch, the pilot would activate an automated launch system. The machine would decide on its own when to launch missiles. Also, it had the earliest fly-by-wire support systems. Due to the size and weight of the missiles, the systems had to automatically counter steer after every launch, to prevent the plane from rolling on its back, as had happened during testflights.
Most aircraft from the early 50s had this capability. Like the F-94 and CF-100. The reason was not because of the closing speeds, but because it was done blind at night or in inclement weather.
It sounds even meaner when flying than it looks. My father used to serve as the chief navigator at an Russian air base hosting dual-sitter trainer variant of Mig-25's and Mig-31's. Loud and terrifying roar.
Probably one of the most famous jets to come out of the USSR/Russia, along with the MiG 21, MiG 29, and the Su-27, its reputation really does precede itself as most Western military fiction novels mentioned it often, the Foxbat.
Even though dissection of Belenko's MiG-25 revealed it to be less formidable than imagined, it did exhibit some ingenious engineering. Its fearful reputation, deserved or not, was of strategic value to the USSR. I think it ties with the Phantom for the meanest-looking aircraft ever built.
Awesome vid as always! Some of the flaws of the MiG25 aren't flaws at all. These were frontal fast scramble interceptors, ment to be guided form the land based radars. Internal radar suite was used only to finalize the attack runs. Totally different from a multirole fighter of western design that we are now used to see.
@Håkan Bergvall Vietnam lol! Do you know how much planes and helis US lost during that war? And those were the export copies of soviet SAM's, manned by some rice farmers without any complex long range radars and other crucial anti-air hardware.
I've always loved this plane! But I haven't thought about it in years, long before I had regular access to the net. To me it's always been a cool looking, but obscure aircraft. Glad to be finally seeing what it's all about!
Except it wouldn't fly. They built the Mig-25 from steel to have the right weight, so it would fly level at Mach 3. Anything lighter, it would climb uncontrollably. Russians know about engineering, you know.
@@NorceCodine except they actually did do that, and it's called the mig-31 "foxhound". about half of the airframe is still nickel-steel alloy, but the rest of it is built from lighter alloys and titanium. supposedly it has a max climb rate just under Mach 0.9 ASL, which is slightly lower than that of the F-15C.
When I was a kid in USSR in 1980s, I was fascinated with any and all machines so that I read a lot about Russian automobiles, tanks, planes, ships, etc., from their original designers' memoirs. The common design objective was to match or beat the Western machines. And the main problem had always been the engines - new Russian designs always required more advanced and powerful engines which never materialized most of the time. At age 12, I thought to myself that my interest in science and technology could only possibly be satisfied by learning from and getting involved with leaders in these domains in Western countries, so that I doubled down on my English and hard sciences to get there.
I watch a lot of informative yt channels and have to say, the storytelling here is top notch. No disconnected sentences, I'm not left with unanswered questions either, everything is clearly explained by someone who actually knows what they're talking about.
The secret to the speed was a combination of the enormous intake diameter of the turbine and all the air it could push behind it while limiting air intake velocity. The other secret was that the engines weren't governed with precision required to keep them from over-reving into overspeed runaway. Fuel delivery and altitude air density mixture under mechanical control was extremely difficult. The SR-71 managed some tricks, but still had to deal with un-starts and force the plane to descend to restart the engines. The West was never scared....just amazed. The Russians always presented solutions to their challenges that commanded respect from the West.
''The West was never scared...'' bruh both sides were shitting bricks all the time. You don't practice post nuclear survival protocols at school out of amazement.
@@dwselle The entire video is literally about how they were terrified by it until they got their hands on one by sheer luck. Then they started calling it shit because the thing it specialized against wouldn't be brought into production and conveniently swept all its achievements under the rug.
The West WAS absolutely scared of the MIG-25. I always find it funny. The USSR was terrified of the B-70, do the built the MIG-25. We were terrified of the MIG-25 so we built the F-15. The Cold War was funny that way.
@@jimmyjohnjames6397 Every time the US gets a bit scared it overreacts so far that they end up a decade or so ahead. F-15 was on a completely different level to the aircraft before it, and the F-22 being a reaction to Su-35s and the like ended up being the first of a new generation of aircraft.
The MIG 25 was an interceptor built to chase nuclear bombers during a nuclear war not to dogfight fighter planes. It was built to get high fast and had vacuum tubes instead off microchips because tubes can resist and EMP from a nuclear explosion.
It was a doomsday fighter.
It doesn't really matter. US for nearly 10 years, thought that USSR had a better plane :D Disinformation was a better tool in cold war, than a fighter plane.
@@klarnorbert Because they didn't understand what the MiG 25 was supposed to do.They believed it was a air superiority fighter.
@@rankoorovic7904 Yeah, US was so paranoid, that they belived everything.
@@klarnorbert Funny thing was the Soviets never said anything.
@@rankoorovic7904 I know, this is why Cold War was so fun. They were so fucking paranoid :D
These illustrating animations are getting better and better.
true, true!
Imagine he illustrates new Dogfights
Does he keep a gallery somewhere? It would be awesome to be able to download some of these images
he better make movies frfr
@@chrishauck3713 0:50 in the left corner
If someone said this was a IMAX documentary with a massive budget, I would totally believe them, this is awesome
Wow there are no comments lol
@@katt_reviews true some of them can be boring some are decent though
So true.
@@katt_reviews Out of the 2 that I have seen, all of the sources they had were the people that were actually doing what they were talking about, whether that was flying planes or maintaining them.
@@katt_reviews ah yes because the people work on aircraft all day with years of experience don't know anything
I’m still staggered by the sheer size of this aircraft. It is ENORMOUS.
The intakes on that thing would be 2K studio apartments in Toronto
@@NormAppleton I wish 😭
For real I had to look different jets and even cruise missile sizes for a good idea it's all shockingly massive
@@NormAppleton yeah
It's not that big.
Soviet-era brute force approach to everything is incredible to think about. Everything they did was brutal, overbuilt, and designed to be made quickly, cheaply, and easily maintained or replaced. I remember reading a story of American pilots in shock at a Russian airforce base, as they saw worked uses sled hammers to beat the ice off the fighter jet wings. The Russian pilots then jumped in and took off as if nothing happened.
Honestly It's still misunderstood today. I think there is a general idea, or at least there certainly was back in the 1980s and 1990s that I remember of Soviet equipment being "cheap" or "crude." However Soviet design and engineering was far from crude, it was just designed with a different approach and philosophy in mind. They learned allot of lessons in WW2 that the US and Britain never really did, when it came to ruggedness and the necessity of makeshift airfields. Also the mass production aspect of Soviet designs is very important, take the F-4 Phantom vs the MiG-21, The F-4 Phantom was arguably superior in most respects to the MiG however there is a cost effectiveness and production aspect that can not at all be dismissed when comparing the two aircraft. I would take 3-4 MiG-21 over a single slow expensive to produce F-4, and the MiG was no underperformer considering the top ACE's of the Vietnam war flew the MiG-21, and no Phantom pilot achieved similar success in their "superior" aircraft.
In fact this brute force is not true.
* For example compared to the mechanically steered radar of F-14 + insanely expensive active radar guided AIM-54 the MiG-31 got PESA radar and SARH guided R-33.
* The first SAM with PESA radar was the S-300PT in 1978 which solved many issues and was a first multi target channel SAM in the world with a single antenna because it was PESA.
Now let's see just the US planes, their weight is indicative.
* F-4 Phantom II ~14 tons while the rest of the world (except PVO fighters for homeland air defense against bombers) remained at 7-9 tons level.
* F-14, 20 tons. A fighter which was keeping in mind ad dogfight. With a 20 tons plane because of the requested features in a single plane.
* Only with 25% titanium ration in airframe reached the 12.5 tons EW the F-15A. If the ration of titanium had been only 10% as in any other aircraft, it would have been just as heavy as the F-4...
Too many ppl. has quite false stereotypical ideas about how the Soviets thought.
Reminds me of that passage in Ignition!:
"The US invested heavily in advanced rocket fuels. But if Ivan wants more thrust, he just builds a bigger rocket."
@@militavia-air-defense-aircraft No no I am not saying by brute force it means their engineering was dumb or unskilled. For example, look at the current rocket programme which is still highly successful today.
American scientists will double the size of the rocket motors to double the payload. The Russians will simply add double the number of rocket motors.
Both get the same result just in different ways.
@@Thatswildpimp I can not exsactly remember where I saw/read this story. It was a recount of a Russian airbase where the MIGs were stored outside during the winter. The planes had something like a inch of ice on the wings. Some American pilots that were visiting the base. They were in shock about how the Russian pilots just left their jets outside in the elements. The stories goes the ground crew started beating the wings with hammers, mallets, and sledge hammers.
Here is a link to another documentary that shows Russian vs American airbases.
ua-cam.com/video/814kuAcpemY/v-deo.html&ab_channel=SessomAsia
After seeing the base and setup, it's not far-fetched of a story.
I was lucky to sit in one of these planes wen I was 5-6 years old,there was 3 of these in my hometown air base back in the day… you guys cannot understand from this video how large that plane is , a grown man can walk straight into the intake of the engine.great video man , thank u
Videos never do justice for how large fighter aircraft are. You always expect bombers to be gigantic but it always blows my mind how big even the fighter jets are. I’ve been to the Dayton Air Force museum a lot and you can’t even comprehend how big jets like the f-15, f-22, etc.. actually are until you’re right by them
@@ethanbarksdale7524 need all that space for fuel and a big ass radar 😂
@@ethanbarksdale7524 Except for the F-16 - this thing is really tiny.
I was awestruck when I walked up to a f15 in person. Worked on them for 4 years, and still every day id look at it and wonder how the ever living fuck it managed to get off the ground. Even seeing them fly at low altitude is just mind blowing.
@@McRuessel And the F-5 is even smaller :)
US: plans to build the Valkyrie
Soviet: builds incredible numbers of single-purpose high-performence Interceptors
US: cancels the Valkyrie
Soviet: you moth....
Valkyrie was cancelled as a bomber maybe a few weeks after the Soviets began developing the MiG-25.
Enemy can't possiply know what's you're going to do if you don't even know it yourself.
- Sun tzu, probably.
US: Play video tape sending people to the moon..
Soviet: Try everything to go catch-up until all money and resources depleted
US: Fool
Soviet: you moth....
@Abhijeet Kundu looks like they were afraid of wrong thing. They protected agains birds but single rpg Javelin NLaw or whatever can destroy it to pieces
@Abhijeet Kundu i wanna see this bird which fly at 20000 meters altitude, please show me it
The Foxbat and the Eagle are perfect examples of why a good intelligence agency is a must for any country.
Foxbat is a poor example. F-15 on the other hand is perfect example of it and making good decisions on the intelligence.
@@zacharyradford5552 yes, it's poor. But at least the Soviets don't give up. Literally also went on to earn to set 9 World Records for flying the highest altitude at 123,520 feet. How about the XB-70 programme terminated after a mid-air during the promo flight on june 8, 1966?
f15 is the result of poor intelligence, they overestimated the plane
@@mrnorthz9373 the US also went to develop the F15 variants including the "E" variants and as well as the F15ex variants, but according to the Wikipedia, it was introduced into July this year, and the first flight was on 2nd February 2021
The Eagles specs were in part based on intelligence (or lack thereof). But the bigger issue was how quickly the F-15 was put into service based on the perceived need to counter the Mig 25. I think if we had known the true specs on a Mig 25 - we still get the Eagle but it takes a few more years to get through development and become operational.
In the words of the timeless Discovery Wings on the MiG-25:
“The design of the MiG-25 was directed entirely at achieving high speed and high altitude. It was not meant to be maneuverable. It was not meant to have good low speed performance. It was simply meant to travel through the air as fast as Soviet ingenuity could make it go.”
Exactly, it was dumbbb for some Westerners to think the Mig-25 was shhtttt simply because of what their standards of a "jet fighter" was and glancing at the facts about what this plane was meant to do.
It's like complaining why a Ford Transit can't handle turns like say a Ferrari or Lamborghini
@@dickmelsonlupot7697 I mean it's not even like this was a difference in doctrine, in the last generation the US built the F-4 which was heavy as shit and maneuvered like a brick and was also initially built to only carry missiles. Meanwhile the Soviet Union built the Mig-21 which was ridiculously maneuverable and was armed with guns from the start. It's just that both the F-4 and the Mig-25 were interceptors and that design necessarily requires compromising on other factors. I think because of the superficial similarity to the plans the west had for their own fighter they just got mislead into thinking that it was something it wasn't and they never really reconsidered.
@@hedgehog3180
though somewhat similar, in practice and in when being detailed, both are very different.
the thing with Russian vs American jets is that Russian jets tend to be more land-based while American jets almost always needs to be carrier based or the very least be easy to transport.
And in regards to the American or even Western mentality goes, the West were generally too over their heads especially Europe and even the general American public (asides from maybe the top brass).
It's all propaganda against the "communist" threat where America and the West fail to see the hubris in their "fight for democracy".
Much like how the Vietnam War would have been avoided if America just took the time to listen to Ho Chi Minh and just realize he and his Viet Minh were communist in name only
The 1960s British "English Electric Lightning" was also a purpose-built interceptor with an outrageous climb speed ("standing on its tail") and initially armed only with two Red Top air to air missiles. But that plane could reach and catch a U2 spyplane, though the US denied it for years.
Guys, nothing personal - just physics. Thin air on high altitudes significally reduces the aerodynamic force needed for maneureing, and trying to sharp turn at great speed will cause unbearable g-force.
wow! perfectly ilustrated
Verified. Must like.
Oh wow verified person who hasn’t actually watched the video because they commented so quickly
This was literally uploaded 2 minutes before you commented that…
Real Data
Except the engine part. The low life span is misunderstood by the masses.
It was incrementally increased as experience gathered by the very short interval inspections.
The inspection time simply was interpreted by the dumb media badly.
Fun fact: the Japanese government billed the Soviet Union $40,000 for the shipping fees and airfield damage when negotiating the return of the plane
Still unpaid, hahaha
They should've exchanged it for the Japanese islands the Soviets stole from them after WWII.
Wow
USSR: seriously Japan. This is dirty
Japan: we have the collateral aka the plane. Pay up or its toast
and then MJ took it personally
I know it’s unrelated and my comment wasted your time. I just made myself chuckle. 🤷🏽♂️😭
@@K3Best just like how the Korean war is still technically ongoing and with the USA still in WW1
The US assumed the MiG-25 was meant for dogfighting, while in reality it was meant to hunt high-altitude bombers that never even were.
gj u watched the video
@@DinkLover69 broo…😂😂😂
What? They certainly did exist.
Nobody thought the Mig-25 was made for dogfighting. Even in the late 60s people knew that dogfighting wasnt the future of air combat, but rather BVR missiles. Idk why people keep using that term.
The US assumed the Mig-25 was made to be a high speed, high altitude missile lobber. So they were scared because this aircraft could fly higher and faster than most else, dropping missiles on their jets from a superior positoin.
@@sheek3222 The kind of mach 2 bomber the Mig-25 was made to counter never really materialized. The american B1-Lancer can hardly even go supersonic, and it was just a downgraded stop gap measure to deal with B2-delays.
When I was a kid, I had a book of fighter jets. It wasn't a kid's book, it was really quite a dry listing of a few technical details for each plane, accompanied by a small photo. I became truly obsessed with the Foxbat, simply because of all the planes in the book, it had the highest listed top speed. Nevertheless, just because of that, and the small, blurry photo, I still remember it clearly, well over 3 decades later.
And that's basically how the NATO nations felt when they first saw it.
Firefox!!
what was the name of the book?
@@mayabartolabac I couldn't actually remember off the top of my head, but to my surprise a Google search came up with the answer immediately. I actually had two books, The Observer's Book of Aircraft and The Observer's Book of Civil Aircraft of Australia and New Zealand. I found the first one much more interesting, it had fighter jets in it :P
And yeah, in retrospect I misremembered about it being a book of fighter jets, it did have a lot of other planes as well.
@@DodderingOldMan woaaaahhh nice thanks for that reply
I've just got to say that the modeling, rendering and animation on these videos is off the charts good.
We don’t care about how frequently you post, just keep making great content like this. We’ll always be there to watch it
Quality over quantity
@@ilovestarship Damn straight.
Having grown up when the Foxbat was still a mystery and could only be seen in one or two grainy photographs this plane still gives me goosebumps 😳
That’s a found footage horror story waiting to happen
Now imagine being the guys at the Pentagon who had to analyze every last grainy detail of those photographs just to make sense of that plane. It must’ve been the CIA’s worst nightmare at that time.
Being an engineer myself, I can only imagine the anguish of the Soviet engineers and scientists when they would have realized that their years of calculations and iterations were compromised by a defector o.O
Well look at what Biden did leaving all our technology behind for Afghans to sell.
Not as much as US engineers realizing that am EMP pulse would burn out integrated circuits and ground every US aircraft with them. The Foxbat didn't use those 'new' circuits and would have been unaffected.
Not quite.
See, the mig-25 was becoming rather old, as the defector ran away 10 years later after its introduction.
In a way, its defection helped the soviet union understand that its jet was to prevent a threat that did not exist, by reading US medias.
The US also did not gain much technology by looking at the mig-25, as globally, the soviet union was rather behind.
@@latengocomoburro The afghan army mostly had outdated US equipment. Also the US army wasn't really here, the US was just supporting Afghanistan from offshore.
Also, the afghan army may not have repair parts, meaning everything they have will be useless within a few years...
No worries. By the time this information was put into practice, the MIG-25 technology had already became obsolete.
Good on you for doing your research and showing that the Valkyrie was the catalyst of MiG-25's inception. A lot of people erroneously attribute it to the SR-71.
it is interesting to note the other popular myth about the SR-71 - that the MiG-31 was in fact absolutely capable of intercepting the Blackbird, and was part of the reason why the SR-71 never overflew the USSR.
And that is a VERY limited scenario. The real reason for the limitation of the Blackbird's surveillance of the USSR was rising tensions following the 1960 Gary Powers shootdown caused Eisenhower to enact a policy of no flyovers, which both Kennedy and Johnson carried on. Plus by that point satellites were operational and doing all the surveillance that was needed.
@@gluesniffingdude Lmfao you just changed it to MiG 31, fair enough I guess. But also important to point out by that time, there were SAMs that could intercept the A-12 too
@@Sammy-cq5gp I don't think even the SAM's operational during that period could intercept the SR-71, by the time the missiles would've reached that altitude it would manoeuvre away.
True.
3:35 Yes, it could be repaired by even the most remote and ill equipped air base...
All they need is a MIG welder...
I see what you did there......
Lololol
I came to the comments to make sure someone already made this joke. Thank you.
Yes
Damnit dad get off the internet
Never the less, it was a beautiful jet, a masterpiece of ingenuity.
it still IS
An ode to practicality
US agents: What you got there?
Random Japanese people just standing around MiG-25: A plane.
A smoothie
"A defector."
@@marmite8959 hooray for references lmao
"A sushi"
@@marmite8959 I see you're a man of culture
I remember when you posted a picture of the foxbat a while back and i immediately made it my lock screen, i just love the design and how everything flows so nicely.
I'm thinking of doing the same - superb CGI work here.
It is one beautiful flying thing, crude, but beautiful
photo link?
Where can i find the post?
Where could I find the post?
The concept was an interceptor that could get to the intruder before the intruder got to the target. At that time the Soviets didn't have in-flight refueling and the 25 had to be big enough to carry its own fuel all the way to the intercept and back to base. A beautiful monster.
You never refuel in a chase..no time for such luxuries.
The Soviet Union was also massive but of course with large sparsely populated areas, they needed something to be able to fly vast distances to cover all their airspace.
Yes it point was to take down bomber quickly, that try come to Soviet Union to bomb Soviet Union and thats why it was so fast and could fly in so high altitude, so Americans thought it was absolute op aircraft jet, while it had many downsides for being able to be so fast and fly in so high altitude, when had so less fuel and could not actually turn around that well.
@@jout738 All military equipment have problems and are designed for specific practical missions. Anyone who ever served, knows that. Where the Soviets and Russians have always had advantage, is in practicality application on the battlefield.. that is because they use continuation in design, quick flexible repairs near battlefield, inexpensive production but very solid, tough and tested in battles, from top to bottom.. paying close attention to regidity. Also, their engineers are Soviet/Russian born and educated, trained with much wider scope of sciences and mechanical engineering..unlike western ones, who depend on importing brain power, for specific projects.
Soviet designs are legendary..many US commanders have stated that, over a long period of time.. That's why we still talk about Migs designed in the 60's and still used today.. Simply incredible.
@@rosszografov614 American imports of experts is an advantage, not a disadvantage. USSR is doomed to lose due to this
I actually have the plastic scale model kit of the MiG-25, bought around 1980 & put together in that same time frame & I still have it to this day. I don't remember the kit maker brand, I might have to research that since I probably don't have the kit box of it anymore. I have a few other jet fighter scale kits, including the F-104 Starfighter & F-4 Phantom, again all of these built back then 4 decades ago, including having kept the cardboard kit boxes but I think I probably don't have the box for the MiG, I would have to look around in my closets.
123k feet of elevation for air-breathing engines is an INCREDIBLE feat, even today. I don't think most people even understand how astonishing this is.
Maybe they do, it's the record after all
Another plane has flown higher but due to secrecy it didn't claim the record...
Look at the color of the afterburners and tell me what fuel do you think there burning to reach those heights?
@@haylocktransport6695 Fuel that had a lower flash point than the JP-7 that the SR-71 used
lol it is even funnier that anyone believes this.
Lt. Viktor Belenko's defection to the West is a rather interesting story in itself, not just for the delivery of a MiG-25 largely intact to Western intelligence, but also his personal experience before, during, and after his defection. While the basics of Belenko's defection is outlined well in the video, one thing I wanted to add was that after he managed to stop the MiG at Hakodate Airport (which had a runway that was at least a third shorter than what Belenko was used to landing MiG-25s on), he took out his pistol and fired off several warning shots at pedestrians that had gathered near the plane in order to keep them from taking pictures. After having made such a remarkable landing, he was running on instinct and his training in maintaining military secrecy kicked in; additionally, he was waiting for American officials to arrive and examine the plan, not Japanese civilians. If anyone is curious about Belenko and his defection, I highly recommend the book "MiG Pilot," by John Barron, which covers all of that, as well as Belenko's life in the Soviet Union and in the United States.
@Nicholas Jaeger
Thanks for the information about the book. I will definitely check it out.
I finished that book a few weeks ago and gave it to my military history professor. Fantastic read.
I feel like this story was reflected in a bizzare pure fiction movie staring Clint Eaatwood.
Can't blame him though, USSR is collapsing.
A book by an American author about a traitor? Hmm, I wonder how that would be like.
As a Mig 25 myself, I appreciate this shout out
Another fantastic video friend! Love the work you do
gaming
Wow
And you to copy for your channel
If you are interested in military aviation and SAMs it is worth to check mine. ;)
Hey! Ketchup is here.
2:40 This render is next level
That's not real footage? Sure fooled me.
you bet the Russians is now bringed it to the next level and even more powerful
One thing that you can guarantee with just about all Soviet engineering is that they found a way to achieve impressive specifications using relatively simplistic materials and techniques.
I remember reading a story how in the 1975 joint US-Soviet Soyuz/Apollo mission, the Soviet cosmonaut purchased a hunting knife at Baikonur before boarding his space shuttle "just in case" he needed it to help fix something. Turned out the TV/monitor in the Soyuz was installed incorrectly, and rather than aborting launch, he just fixed it in space - not even with the knife, but having used his teeth to strip the wires that needed to be reconnected!
And when NASA needed to communicate with folks on the ground !
DIY Soviet Space Engineering
lol, sometimes there's no need to complicated things
So the most realistic part of the movie "Armageddon" is "this is how we fix things on Russian space station!"
@@andrewruddy962 Nothing has been to space. You're funny.
I have watched this video 4 times now and it gets better every time.
The Valkyririe was a mastyery of engineering. The Foxbat was the the monstrous counterpart. Those engines. That payload. What an achievement. Phenomenal engineering.
How was Foxbat a "counterpart" of the B-70?
@@chuckkline2970 And the video is clearly inaccurate. Mustard has some great videos, and his information is typically comprehensive, but even gets it wrong sometimes. You don't have trust me over Mustard, just look at the facts.
The B-70 bomber program was the result of the 2nd WS-110 competition of 1957. The Russians were already working on the Ye-150 family of high speed aircraft by then, and Mikoyan was assigned the devellopment of the airplane that became the MiG-25 in 1961. Kennedy cancelled the B-70 bomber program on March 28, 1961, no more than 2 months after work began on the MiG-25. The Soviets continued developing the MiG-25 over the decade, even repeated attempts to re-start the B-70 were thwarted, even after USAF began design stufies like SLAB and similar programs - some of them calling for a mach 2 airplane, some subsonic, pretty much all low-altitude, quite unlike the B-70. The XB-70, a research aircraft which carried less fuel than originally designed for the B-70, and having no combat systems, was rolled-out in May of 1964 - the MiG-25 had already flown the previous March, a response to an airplane that didn't even exist.
The Soviets continued developing the MiG-25 for serial production, even after production of Valkyries was cut back to 2, even after 1 of them was lost in an accident, and never replaced. In early 1969, the sole surviving XB-70A was flown to WPAFB, its last flight. The MiG-25 went operational with VVS later that year, and a few years after that with PVO - the Soviet force dedicated to air defense, again in response to an aircraft that did not exist.
In short, the timeline makes it clear that the Soviets began their efforts at high-speed interceptors before the B-70 was initiated, and spent most of their time on the MiG-25 well after it was cancelled. Clearly, the 2 aircraft are only incidentall connected, if at all.
@@winternow2242 Ok.... can't argue with that. o7. Thanks for the info!
Mastery
It was produced to stop the sr71
ЭВМ Горчица written on your "computer" is a nice touch. It means "mustard computer" if anyone wonders
Классно
😆 I just checked that in translate. Styled like a Commodore PET too. 🙂
The animated illustrations are so incredible looking they're starting to look photo realistic
Bro when i started get into fighter jets I fell in love the mig 25
many MiG-25 and F-14 interactions happened during the Iran-Iraq war. these two had the best pilots for both jets.
Mustard is the soul example of quality over quantity
Damn right
*oversimplified didn’t like that*
You're right that Mustard is a great example of it, but not the only.
I'd like to introduce you to
LEMMiNO:
ua-cam.com/users/LEMMiNO
and XboxAhoy:
ua-cam.com/users/XboxAhoy
@@busbee5163 *LEMMiNO didn’t like that*
Do you mean sole?
This plane was like a muscle car.... fast as hell, don't expect to turn, don't expect to go far, hope it doesn't fall apart at top speeds
It was able to turn. Proof is that airforces around the world used it for much lower altitude interceptors and for dogfights. It's just it was not exceptional at it.
@@Billswiftgti what dogfights? Against who? Using what?
@@zigwil153 you can search this
@@Billswiftgti I choose not to... you made the claim
@@zigwil153 oh yeah you are right
For a plane that old and still holding records is impressive
US: “Oh no, Russia now has the best jet…”
Soviet Union: **Laughs in speedy brick**
It was the best jet at that time though.
@@OGPatriot03 True. People shit on it for being a brick but it's not like the Phantom was supermaneuverable either.
Oh no, we think Russia has the best jet.
Let’s make the actual best jet in response.
@@ricardoricardoricardoricardo It's like comparing the volvo 240 "flying brick" to the cars that got clapped by it
but they would shi-- I mean throw out bricks when they see it
The MiG-25's maneuverability wasn't actually particularly limited by its aerodynamics and lift-to-weight. While the manual's figure is a paltry 4.5g, this actually because the plane began to suffer risk of aerodynamic issues due to wing flexing; the wings would flex enough beyond this to incur a risk of aileron reversal, although this would not result in airframe damage, simply making the aircraft more difficult to fly. A MiG-25 at one point accidentally pulled 11.5G in a dogfight training mission, giving some sense to the scale of which it was technically capable of maneuvering. Pulling the aircraft this hard did incur some damage to wing spars, but did not result in a loss of control or failure of the structure.
At high altitudes and speeds, the MiG-25 was actually pretty great in terms of maneuverability; pulling those same 4.5gs at mach 2.3 at 15,000 meters is something not a lot of planes can do today, much less back then.
On the issue of speed, the main reason the engines weren't built to exceed mach 2.8 was that mach 2.8 was the maximum speed of the interceptor version while carrying a full load of missiles. Thus there was no reason at the time to build it to go any faster, as it'd only be capable of doing so with a clean wing and no drop tanks, which it was never expected to use in service. It was only after building the lower drag recon variant that the issue of overspeeding the engines became apparent
Another interesting note, the MiG-25's ease of conversion into a bomber was directly tied to the sheer size of the air to air missiles. A MiG-25B with a full bombload of 500kg bombs had about the same weight and drag as a MiG-25P with a full load of missiles, allowing it to reach the same astonishing heights and speeds as the interceptor while carrying strike ordnance
When your missiles are the size of bombs.
Yup, all good points. Soviet engineers had no idea how to control the flutter beyond 4.5G on something made out of glorified stainless steel. On the other hand, pulling 4.5G at beyond M2.0 at the thin atmosphere up in FL500 is still an astonishing feat til this very day.
gotta love how missiles are pretty much rockets with guidance system, and then there's the R-40 which is pretty much a GBU with rocket motor
@@vermas4654 big bomber requires big missile, same logic as the american AIM-54 really
Lots of old misconceptions in this video. It basically regurgitates old western propaganda about the aircraft. For example, implying that the stainless steel was obsolete for a mach 3 aircraft, while omitting that the same material was used on the B-70 Valkyrie. Not to mention that, a large combat aircraft of the same size, the F-111, weights the about the same as the MiG and it is made out of aluminium.
Another old misconception, is that it was wrong of the Soviets to built it since the primary treat, the B-70, was canceled, while there were "only a few reconnaissance aircraft" to worry about. Well, the Mach 3 SR-71 was out there flying missions wasn't it? Also, the Mach 2 B-58 and Mirage IV were also serious treats that a MiG-21 would have a hard time with, not to mention the then new F-111. All of those look like a good reason to have the MiG-25 to me.
Mig-25 and Mig-31:
10% fuselage
90% engine
And 1917% pure Soviet madness
I see what you did there
Joke: only its drunken Russian pilot is scarier than the plane!
And the plane is really unique ...
yeah i think that that's the concept for every soviet thing ever made
Algeria retired its fleet of mig 25s last year after an airshow over the capital city. They were mostly used as recon and reportedly penetreted Morocco's air space repeatedly during the 70s and 80s
Wakl l 7xix ???
India retired its fleet in 2006. Till then it never acknowledged the fighters presence in IAF. Only a handful of pilots and officers knew of their existence.
@@parthaghosh146 both air forces use nowadays variants of the SU30. mki for India and mka for Algeria
As an Indian I have seen this plane in person but I never knew how good these jets were , thank you for sharing this
I have also seen it in airforce museum ,dehli ☺️
@@Pablo_the_hedgehog I saw these in IAF Shillong 😁
@@brOkENKeYBoArD900 🤯, you saw the thing airborne that's awesome , beyond awesome
Lucky you. 😒
@@Pablo_the_hedgehog no, I meant they were like placed like a statue , it would be a dream come true to see it fly again
The sheer amount of Hard work that Mustard puts in each and every video is truly unthinkable. Thats the reason we wait for such a long time just to watch a single video. But the Quality always remains top notch !
Hope this channel gets millions of subscribers in order to appreciate the quality of this channel.
It’s still a bad ass jet. I always appreciated the migs and the 20 series. The 29
Is objectively a beautiful aircraft
ah, I see you are a man of culture as well
I think the same goes for the 25. Its brute design is beautiful in its own
Mig 29 is my fave hands down! That I thought was a capable and incredibly good looking plane.
@@seancagney1369 yeah as a kid I would make plastic models of the Mig 29. People get too nationalistic about their planes. I’m an American but I have always admired Russian aviation.
@@2steaksandwiches665 is ok to like russian planes, they fly good, yes
One of the reason why the MiG-25's radar is so powerful is that it uses vacuum tubes instead of transistors and integrated circuits. They did this because vacuum tubes are less susceptible to interference from the EMP of nuclear weapons and NATO electronic warfare capabilities. In the Persian Gulf War, a significant number of air-to-air missiles fired by the Iraqis against Coalition planes were launched from MiG-25s. These planes were one of the few types that has a radar powerful enough to burn through Coalition ECM.
..need lead CM, not electronic, to stop the radar on this thing, mauahaha.
The radar was powerful, but did not have target selection against the background of the earth.
The 6C33C valve known to all audiophiles, was developed to stabilize the current in the early modifications of MIGs. :)
The main reason the MiG 25's radar was valve-powered was it fitted with an updated version of the Smerch-A radar fitted to the earlier Tupovlev TU-28P. They did this in order to save time & development costs. It was also ideal for its role of intercepting high-fling bombers, which is all it was intended to do. The higher resistance to EMP was, merely, an unplanned for bonus. Another reason valves were chosen were their higher resistance to the extreme heating the radar would endure at high-supersonic speeds, negating the need for a heavy/complex cooling system in the plane's avionics bay. But the "real" factor, under-pinning everything was the moribund state of the Soviet electronics manufacturing at the time. The were very far behind by the US by the mid-60s & when they did finally develop solid-state radars by the early-mid 70s they suffered so many manufacturing issues that the early Safir-23 radars fitted to MiG-23s had service lives measured in hours & often deviated from their stated range by a factor of ten.
You'd better to study what the EMP and ECM is man.
@@grigor.h3929
In the ussr, the plane was valued more than the life of a pilot.
The MiG design bureau made/and still makes so many master pieces in their long and amazing history
Hate to bring it to you but the Mig coperation has been incorperated into what is in effect the sukoi design berue and so no longer exist
Even the MiG-3 was exceptional in WW2 just underappreciated because it wasn't suited for the way the war developed since it was designed as a high altitude long range fighter, and Russia needed short range low altitude dogfighters, due to the quickly moving and close range of front line airfields and low altitude nature of Soviet ground attack tactics and close air support of troops on the ground on the Eastern Front. The MiG-3 would have been exceptionally good as a escort fighter like the British and Americans needed early on, that led to the development of the P-51.
Actually nope.
The MiG bureau since MiG-31 did not designed a successful fighter.
Nope, the MiG-29 family is anything but successful but somehow most of ppl. fail to recognize this.
The MiG-29 9.12 and 9,.13 were the last planes which were produced really in greater qty.
* These planes were laughably heavy compared to their limited range and loadout.
* The MiG-29 9.12/13 were closer in range to MiG-21bis than MiG-23MF. Not the ML or MLD, to the heavier MF with worse engine.
* The 11 ton MiG-29s had the same internal fuel as the F-16A Block 1 which was only 7.5 tons.
* The F-16A had 4+4 wing and a CL station (hardpoint) while the MiG-29s only 3+3 and a CL.
* The MiG-29 missed most of the new features even the F-16A Block 1 and it was pale in comparison with the F-16 Block 25. The Block 25 production started just a bit later when the MiG-29 9.12...
Maybe one day I make a video about the tragic fate of the MiG-29 family.
The only closest thing to a "master piece" that they made is basically the Fishbed for its simplicity, everything else was meh in the end
MIG 35 looks soo good as a modernised MIG 29
5% Fuselage
5% Wing
90% Engine
Correction*
50% Fuselage
25% Wing
9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% Engine
Also, guided by stalin's soul
and made of stalinium
@@igameidoresearchtoo6511 Sounds like something from an Avengers movie. 😉👍✨
This beast I was taking about,.... the mig 25, I have seen this monster in person, it is huge,at the Air Force museum, thanks for serving Indian Air Force for more than 25+ years.👌👍
Engineer 1: "But comrade, we don't have the right turbojets for this plane!"
Engineer 2: "🤔🤔🤔 ... there are some cruise missiles lying in the corner, why don't we take their jets!!"
Engineer 1: "Brilliant idea, comrade!!!"
xD
I don't even know why an interceptor needs long engine life
@@ArneChristianRosenfeldt 🤷🏻♂️ dont ask me, Im just impressed by the ingenuity of the Russians
I read this in the Russian accent yet am even African
@@ArneChristianRosenfeldt wait there supposed to comeback?
Great content and visuals !
thank you!
@@MustardChannel For the money?
You should totally do the Avro Arrow next, it's one great but sad story.
If he does the Arrow story, you gotta have the TSR-2 next.
Yea both would be very cool but maybe TSR 2 first as less have herd of it
In fact it was a logical choice to discard the plane.
Actually I plan to make a video about it.
@@onlythehutch6559 tsr2 kinda overrated, the b-70 was flat out better in every way and around the same time
@@quinndenver4075 the b-70 and the TSR-2 were COMPLETELY different planes made for different roles.
This jet was so Legendary that it's still relevant today. What a monster & masterpiece of engineering 💥
Mig 31 is its successor. I do love russian jets. The su-57 is a cool plane but my favourite had to he the mig31, simply cause of how high and how fast it can fly.
Trash jet. F-15 beats it
@@MrTefenope, mig is still superior
@@spoonnn1738 F-15 more than 100 kills and NEVER shot down. MIG-29 has 16 kills and 28 deaths lmao. MIG is not superior. F-15 beats it
MiG-31 is much more awesome.
Sukhoi’s and MiGs are things of beauties.
The Su-7 got me like 😳
American and Soviet fighter jets are the Mistresses of the Skies.
F15 🥱
Russian fighter jets just look more sleek than their American counterparts.
This is why I love Soviet engineers. Designing cutting-edge new jet engines is expensive and takes a long time. But re-using engines from a cruise missile to power an ultra-fast interceptor is kinda genius. Who cares about engine longevity if you can produce all the parts pretty cheaply, and your repair costs are offset by the fact you spent nothing on R&D for dedicated new ones?
That was the tactics they used in ww2 as well. Why build better tanks then german if you can build 100 times the amount they have in a shoy period of time
@@KaranSingh-jr2eu And sucrifice 100 times more of your troops because you know... they are just numbers on the paper.
@@SKYNETcz its a win in the end tho
@@KaranSingh-jr2eu This is way oversimplified and more of a myth at that point. The Soviets were actually more advanced in production organization than Germany, because they had imported a lot of this knowledge from the world leader, the USA. Germany had an extremely inefficient system. Their military branches fought for resources, the military made production decisions and so on.
The reason the Soviets produced very crude equipment is simply because most of their production lines weren't designed for anything complex (tractors and other simple equipment). If the production lines were adapted for tanks, they wouldn't have made them as crude and simple. The USA still outproduced everyone without making crude equipment for reference.
@@SKYNETcz The losses of the Soviets were mostly due to POWs being executed by Germany, if you account for POWs the difference isn't that big. The Soviets simply had efficient leadership while Germany's whole leadership structure was a dumpster fire.
In western 'popular mechanics' equivalent magazines, I read that American intelligence officers who flew over to examine the Mig-25 that landed in Japan, were rather disappointed, feeling that the Soviets were playing a trick on them.
They suspected that the Soviets had sent a much downgraded version on purpose to frustrate their intelligence gathering.
They couldn't believe this was the fabled Mig-25 super fighter jet that they had feared for so many years.
Because of the steel that was used instead of titanium, Belenko's Mig showed some pretty noticeable spots of rust.
wdym too heavy? just give it ultra stronk engines lol
-engineers
I've read a similar story in an aircraft magazine but with one important difference: that they were also perplexed how something this crude could still pull off these amounts of speed.
Does stainless steel rust?
@@ABCEDEFG911 I Mean it's called STAINLESS steel so it shouldn't.
@@cheemsman6789 stainless means less rust stainfree means no rust😏
I love our response. "We are keeping the pilot, but you can have your garbage back."
This channel is the real definition of quality over quantity.
compare 1930s Nazi Germany Vs 2020s Communist Chinazi IN YOUR NEXT VIDEO Project before it's too late
Soviet Minister of Defense: So how fast is your concept?
MiG design bureau: Yes
Minister of Defense: how much "Yes"?
MiG: Y E S
@@Stormidze *Y E S*
I dont get it……
What yes?
LOL!!
I love the Flanker and the Fulcrum, but this is my favorite Soviet cold war plane. The sheer inelegance of it is oxymoronically beautiful.
Same, for me it's the most beautiful aircraft ever built, Sukhois, F-15 and F/A-18 are good looking, but MiG 25 is the best looking.
It's also why I find the Volvo 240 to be a beautiful car. In its own way.
Something about the nickel steel's dark grey colour and all the welded seams, plus the bulk and the harsh shape are as brutalist, rough and extreme as it gets and I definitely love it. Nothing sleek, agile or beautiful about it - nothing like a Spitfire or even other jets.
Reminds of me of a semi-apocalyptic Soviet alternate history, something out of a film or video game with exaggerated everything.
It is a Hot Rod!
Take you to near space too
@@ubergnu Function over form
Fun fact:
That pilot avoided media attention very well and declined every interview, all we have from him is an autobiography and a half drunk informal interview in a bar.
During said interview he said he likes living in the USA, and enjoys how little people cared for what you think compared to that of the Soviet Union. He also said he visited Moscow once since he left, and states he lived in fear every day since his defection.
He died in September 2023.
This is why I love how Xenonauts, an XCOM style game set in an alt Cold War used MiG-31’s (upgraded versions) with nuclear tipped missiles to allow for intercepting super fast UFO’s which makes a lot of sense as it’s one of the fastest fighters and equipping it with nuclear missiles is perfect for deleting UFOs
And Foxhounds in Xenonauts is good untill very late game.
With some mods you can also use 4 short range aam's, if you need to kill UFO fighters.
Based
U can Kill Scout and other agile UFO with Mig if u mirco rockets manually. (Lock on. Fire 1st missle. Wait enemy starts dodging. Fire 2nd missle so AI never uses dodge again)
But the game is average and too simplified no match for vanilla Xcom games
Perfect for dumb Sci-Fi UFOS, real aliens would melt the combined planets military within minutes at the worst.
@@Pacbandit13 usure?
@@steelwind2334 Any civilization that would want us gone and has advanced enough to space travel and get here is more than likely vastly overpowers our combined military might due to the technological gap.
Don't think any plane so perfectly achieved its mission like the Mig25. It was in and of itself a powerfully fearsome deterrent for over a decade. I have no love for the Soviet Union but respect for their engineers given limited resources, pretty amazing stuff. You don't have to love your adversary to respect them either.
Over a decade? The plane went operational around 1970, maybe 5 years before the F-15 went into service, and 4 years before the F-14. What exactly did the MiG-25 deter?
@@winternow2242 it detered nuclear bombers being able to reach their targets. It also was a very effective propaganda weapon.
Понимать, значит любить и никак иначе. ))
@@winternow2242 Deternet for nuclear bombers, not other fighter jets
@@cursedcliff7562 unlikely much of a deterrent, as usaf future plans called for low-altitude "penetration", where the MiG-25 had little of its high speed capabilities, and had no effective look-down/shoot-down capability.
Each Mustard upload is a minor event: no channel comes even close in quality of presentation and topics. My own channel may never be as good as this, but I'll keep doing the best I can :)
you narrate these aircraft stories much more better than the other youtubers........with great suspense...
My dad was a MiG-25 pilot in the 102nd Squadron "The Trisonics" of the Indian Air Force.
He was there in 1997 when an indian MiG-25 flew over pakistan's capital Islamabad at over Mach 2 generating a very loud sonic boom which was mistaken for a bomb blast. He told me that a few years later in England he met this pakistani gentleman who was in their air force and he distinctly remembered that day, he said that he thought now some Pakistani pilot is gonna get his ass kicked for flying supersonic over their capital, it was later that he found out that it was an indian MiG-25.
Bullshit this happened.
@@superamario6464 you can google about that incident.
if youre referring to my old man meeting that Pakistani guy i don t have any proof.
@@superamario6464 From wikipedia...
"In May 1997, an Indian Air Force Mikoyan MiG-25RB reconnaissance aircraft created a furor when the pilot flew faster than Mach 3 over Pakistani territory following a reconnaissance mission into Pakistan airspace.[71] The MiG-25 broke the sound barrier while flying at an altitude of around 20,000 m (66,000 ft), otherwise the mission would have remained covert, at least to the general public. The Pakistani Government contended that the breaking of the sound barrier was a deliberate attempt to make the point that the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) had no aircraft in its inventory that could come close to the MiG-25's cruising altitude (up to 23,000 metres (74,000 ft))"
@@HarishKrishnan45 Not saying it's not true but Wikipedia is one of the worst source to refer. It's edited by anyone easily. It may have been occurred or not we don't know for sure.
@@hasnan7 check the sauces brah it's legit
Fun fact. My great uncle was one of the test pilots for the XB-70 Valkyrie. His name was Van H. Shepard. That man is a legend to me growing up.
My uncle served in ww2, took a German belt and knife off a dead German soldier. I got to examine it this year for the first time, the knife is extremely heavy, the belt is made of genuine leather. Though it deeply saddened me to know some young German boy lost his life. You could tell by how small the belt was buckled.
the one that got wrecked in the famous test flight?
I bet you're more proud of the Russians these days PepePublican
Nobody gives a f...
So?
America: NOOOO, YOU CANT JUST MAKE A JET FASTER THEN THE F4 PHANTOM AND ANTI AIRCRAFT DEFENSES!
Soviet Union: Haha, *Mig-25 engine go zoom*
*MACH 3 BABY, WOOOOOO*
*laughs in AIM54 Phoenix and the SR-71*
@@bigtony4930 laughs in MIG 31 and ICBM
@@debadityasaha1684 laughs in orbiting satellite and ABM.
Lockheed YF-12 with AIM-47 Falcon flew 1963 so yeah... covertly buy titanium from the Soviet Union to build super secret aircraft to spy on the Soviet Union and its allies. Yo Joe!!!
Mustard is simply the best youtuber in UA-cam. The animations, the dramatic touch, and the quality is just amazing, You are the best mustard.
“Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak”
_- Sun Tzu_
Use Cruise missile when you don't have big enough jet engine
- USSR Bootstrap engineering manual
The first thing I thought when this popped up in my feed: I hope he talks about the MIG-31 as well. I think you finally convinced me to join nebula with that tease
I remember sitting in one of these MIG-25 since my country was a very good ally of the Soviet Union, something which it has retained albeit with Russia. I must say that despite crew saying that it was 40 years old, it still had a very modern cockpit with missiles on the wings being Almost 3 times by height. The cockpit was very big and I estimate that it could fit a person 6'8" at the most. Also, the plane was very, very big. I have also been in the Sukhoi Su-30 and it's length was half of that of the MIG-25. The controls were also easy to understand and just like the AK, any one could use them.
a large cockpit for a hardened space suit wearing pilot. as the avionics as for the pilot.
As someone who has flown in F-18s I can tell you that a Mig-25s cockpit is prehistoric compared to one of those.
@@warreninman9801 F-18 came after Mig 25 so, what were you expecting?
I think i know where are you from :)
@@Pomorchik first and ONLY mass produced mach 3 jet.
4:35 new wall paper I guess ( this is an amazing render stellar job )
7:37
"no-one seemed to know where it had come from..."
*giant red star on the tail*
For something made with just straight up steel: its got quite a charm for looking like something unique
The B-1 Lancer is actually also designed for high speed, high altitude missions, it's just that battle tactics & doctrines have changed & it is often forced into the low altitude intercept role that's taking its toll on the airframes.
That was the B-1A’s designation. The B-1B changed it to low supersonic, low altitude
The B-1 is a bomber not an interceptor.
Well, that and the fact that it could never meet performance targets because the intake design was fundamentally flawed by being 90 degrees to the wing, which allowed the inlet shock waves to rip into the wing boundary layer. This is detailed in a thread at PPRuNe.
GOD I love the production value on these.
Foxbat was one of my favourite plans when I was a teenager in my fighter jet phase, it was impressive speed and records and it looked cool to me as well
I saw these planes less than a year ago, causally sitting at Novosibirsk airport in Russia....you dont realize how enormous this plane is until you see it.
i always like to see the size of cockpit versus the whole plane.. that tells a lot aout the plane's real size. In Foxbat and Foxhound the cockpit really looks super-miniature in comparison to whole body.. where as if u look at other planes such as F-15, F-16 the ration is completely different
I remember as a kid in the 80's (10 - 11yo?) building a box set model kit I got for my birthday with a MiG-25 Foxbat and an F-15 Eagle combo inside, they were the pride of my model collection. (and the F-14 Tomcat too) lol
MIG engineers when designing the foxbat be like: "if engine doesn't work, use more engine".
Oh...Now I get where the Mercedes F1 teams got their 2021 engine stratagy from....lol
The low life span is misunderstood by the masses.
It was incrementally increased as experience gathered by the very short interval inspections.
The inspection time simply was interpreted by the dumb media badly.
@burgers? “And if thoughts engines don’t work use more engines” - engineer
@@vigneshkannan3921 think about a soviet f1 team. they would make cars double as heavy with triple the power of others.
@@christian9125abd Then they would lose, because you can't make triple the power from a 1.6L V6 without breaking the rules on peak fuel flow, total fuel load, or would be permanently at the back of the grid due to poor engine reliability.
The Mig-25 is my favorite jet..
A shame you didn't talk about the avionics. Because a head on interception of the X-70 would not allow enough time for a manual missile launch, the pilot would activate an automated launch system. The machine would decide on its own when to launch missiles. Also, it had the earliest fly-by-wire support systems. Due to the size and weight of the missiles, the systems had to automatically counter steer after every launch, to prevent the plane from rolling on its back, as had happened during testflights.
Most aircraft from the early 50s had this capability. Like the F-94 and CF-100.
The reason was not because of the closing speeds, but because it was done blind at night or in inclement weather.
The Mig25 is my favourite Soviet aircraft. Not only was it incredibly capable, but also it looks amazing. It's so angular and it looks mean as hell.
I always think of it as the flying Soviet fridge. It looks so boxy. And I love it!
@@vermas4654 IIRC one of its nicknames is the "flying anvil" because its made of steel
@@fernandomarques5166 I like that one as well
It sounds even meaner when flying than it looks. My father used to serve as the chief navigator at an Russian air base hosting dual-sitter trainer variant of Mig-25's and Mig-31's. Loud and terrifying roar.
@@apathyzen9730 Sounds like a great job!
Probably one of the most famous jets to come out of the USSR/Russia, along with the MiG 21, MiG 29, and the Su-27, its reputation really does precede itself as most Western military fiction novels mentioned it often, the Foxbat.
Yes, it really is famous for being Absolute shit
Good thing the India has all of them
Even though dissection of Belenko's MiG-25 revealed it to be less formidable than imagined, it did exhibit some ingenious engineering. Its fearful reputation, deserved or not, was of strategic value to the USSR. I think it ties with the Phantom for the meanest-looking aircraft ever built.
Mustard videos are fkn amazing
11:34 - The computer's name is EVM Mustard (Gorchica)
EVM stands for electronic calculation machine. Well done, Mustard, awesome Easter egg!
Soviets: “Defector, return to the USSR immediately”
Defector: “lol no thx 😊”
lol
"No, I dont think I will"
ua-cam.com/video/7V-mBdjR9Fs/v-deo.html
How much CIA must have paid for it's "defection"?
@@guruxara7994 Probably none, there was a reason USSR stayed behind an Iron Curtain, and let me tell you, it's wire isn't faced west.
Its 0:13 at midnight but I feel like this is an absolutely great time to watch a Mustard video
The afterburner around 10:13 turning on matches with the sounds effects
Awesome vid as always!
Some of the flaws of the MiG25 aren't flaws at all. These were frontal fast scramble interceptors, ment to be guided form the land based radars. Internal radar suite was used only to finalize the attack runs. Totally different from a multirole fighter of western design that we are now used to see.
Yes, but they're still a flaw as they mean it can't compete with possible western fighters escorting bombers
@@krthecarguy5150 if the fighter isn't as fast and cant fly as high then it will hold the bomber back. Too slow and low = death from SAM
@Håkan Bergvall What aircraft will be used as SEAD that has the range to operate over USSR and also defend itself from hundreds of MIGs?
@Håkan Bergvall Vietnam lol! Do you know how much planes and helis US lost during that war? And those were the export copies of soviet SAM's, manned by some rice farmers without any complex long range radars and other crucial anti-air hardware.
@Håkan Bergvall As if the Soviets don't have their own counters, not like the Vietnam war was a shining moment for the USAF either
I've always loved this plane! But I haven't thought about it in years, long before I had regular access to the net. To me it's always been a cool looking, but obscure aircraft. Glad to be finally seeing what it's all about!
Imagine building the mig 25 in composites and rare and lighter metal, you'd have a space shuttle.
It’s called mig-31
The en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan_MiG-31 is a modernised version of the Mig-25 and is currently in use by the Russian Air Force.
Except it wouldn't fly. They built the Mig-25 from steel to have the right weight, so it would fly level at Mach 3. Anything lighter, it would climb uncontrollably. Russians know about engineering, you know.
@@NorceCodine except they actually did do that, and it's called the mig-31 "foxhound". about half of the airframe is still nickel-steel alloy, but the rest of it is built from lighter alloys and titanium. supposedly it has a max climb rate just under Mach 0.9 ASL, which is slightly lower than that of the F-15C.
@@NorceCodine obviously, you don't know anything at all
What a great channel I just stumbled upon..
When I was a kid in USSR in 1980s, I was fascinated with any and all machines so that I read a lot about Russian automobiles, tanks, planes, ships, etc., from their original designers' memoirs. The common design objective was to match or beat the Western machines. And the main problem had always been the engines - new Russian designs always required more advanced and powerful engines which never materialized most of the time. At age 12, I thought to myself that my interest in science and technology could only possibly be satisfied by learning from and getting involved with leaders in these domains in Western countries, so that I doubled down on my English and hard sciences to get there.
Were You successful? Did you get into a western institution to satisfy your learning?
@@paogene1288 Yes to all of your questions.
Good on you @@max0x7ba, I hope you maintain your success for the future as well. =)
I watch a lot of informative yt channels and have to say, the storytelling here is top notch. No disconnected sentences, I'm not left with unanswered questions either, everything is clearly explained by someone who actually knows what they're talking about.
Story telling indeed...
Engineers:How fast and powerful jet do you need ?
Soviet Union: Yes
Soviet Union: DA
Soviet/cold war era aircraft were so beautiful and fascinating, the fish beds. Fox bats and the foxhound were so cool
The secret to the speed was a combination of the enormous intake diameter of the turbine and all the air it could push behind it while limiting air intake velocity. The other secret was that the engines weren't governed with precision required to keep them from over-reving into overspeed runaway. Fuel delivery and altitude air density mixture under mechanical control was extremely difficult. The SR-71 managed some tricks, but still had to deal with un-starts and force the plane to descend to restart the engines. The West was never scared....just amazed. The Russians always presented solutions to their challenges that commanded respect from the West.
''The West was never scared...'' bruh both sides were shitting bricks all the time. You don't practice post nuclear survival protocols at school out of amazement.
@@cerberusrex5275 I really don't think they were "terrified" of the Mig 25...lmao!
@@dwselle The entire video is literally about how they were terrified by it until they got their hands on one by sheer luck. Then they started calling it shit because the thing it specialized against wouldn't be brought into production and conveniently swept all its achievements under the rug.
The West WAS absolutely scared of the MIG-25. I always find it funny. The USSR was terrified of the B-70, do the built the MIG-25. We were terrified of the MIG-25 so we built the F-15. The Cold War was funny that way.
@@jimmyjohnjames6397 Every time the US gets a bit scared it overreacts so far that they end up a decade or so ahead. F-15 was on a completely different level to the aircraft before it, and the F-22 being a reaction to Su-35s and the like ended up being the first of a new generation of aircraft.