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Originally Posted by M21Sniper
... an attempt to poison the board with Russian KooLAiD.  ... |
... which continues unceased.
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Originally Posted by Captain Drunk
Agreed, but Foxbat was and still is the spy with a lisence to kill, while SR-71 was merely the undercover war photographer gathering information
Then again it’s not like Foxbat was a poor man’s SR-71, X-15 was a rich man’s Ferrari or the Mir Space Station was another’s million dollar luxury yatch. We’re talking fighter planes here and so, Foxbat wins the Mach race at 3.2. SR-71, X-15, etc. were for recee, research, and other purposes while X-43A wasn’t even a manned aircraft. If Russia wanted, they could have had their very own version of the X-15, its just that they didn’t think it seemed fit sending Cosmonauts for hypersonic joyrides to the edge of space then returning back to base with nothing gained but high static in their underwears
But if it came to pure speed, irrespective of the propulsion system, i.e. scramjets, rocket-propulsion, etc., there are several Russian Spaceplanes like MiG 105-11, Uragan Space Interceptor, BOR-5, LKS, etc. that were designed to be launched from Tupolevs and climb under their own power to subspace orbitals at hypersonic speeds, some exceeding Mach 18.
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MiG-105, Uragan, BOR-5, LKS, etc. have never flown and you have given no sources about them flying above Mach 6 or flying at all. When it comes to pure speed, try an STS Space Shuttle(Atlantis, Discovery, Endeavour) with a reentry sequence of Mach-20+ and even better try the probe Stardust which raced and caught up to a comet and hung on for a while as well before turning back. That's a feat no Russian air/spacecraft has ever done.
Back to Earth, Foxbat(again) can only hit Mach 3 in an emergency, self-destruct run away, where it's engines can only last until it's landing or even less before getting completely scorched. SR-71 Blackbird, on the other hand, cruises at Mach 3.2 at a minimum of 70000 ft. Who says the MiG-25 can fight while the Blackbird can't? The A-12 Oxcart interceptor was fully armed with missiles for super quick scrambling intercept purposes. So far, the fastest "real" aircraft remains the SR-71 and it's variants, the A-12 and YF-12, which all can reach Mach 3.35. As of bomber-launched aircraft, there's the Mach-6 X-15 and Mach-10 X-43, both of which have had proven flights while the MiG105, uragan, BOR-5 haven't flown.