Thread: Farewell, the MiGnificent flying machine

Originally Posted by InlineSix

You are all mising the point here. There were alot of SAMs fired on the Blackbird, but neither one has been fired from soviets. It is simple. The majority of the time that SR-71 spent in action was outside the russian teritory, and therefore, was free of any shooting events. After the U-2 incident, Eisenhower agreed with the russians that no more overflights of the USSR territory will be done. So the sr-71 stayed outside the russain borders and neither the MiGs-25 nor the SAMs could open fire on the blackbird.

Simply not true, which you would know if you'd have studied SR-71 operations more closely. There was at least one incident where an SR-71 "accidentally" strayed deep into Soviet airspace and PVO went NUTs trying to intercept it.

The story is in the book "Sled Driver", but i've seen it online before too.

I find the whole «closure rate too high» thing to be a rather unworthy of discussion.

Who gives a shiit if YOU find it unworthy of discussion? A mig-25 pilot stated emphatically that the SR-71s closure rate was simply too great for the Mig25s onboard fire control computers to calculate.

Unless YOU are a Mig25 pilot, your opinion on this matter is QUITE irrelevant to the stated facts.

Regardless, Mig-25s lacked the performance(specifically the range) to intercept blackbirds anyway, so it's irrelevant.

Now the Mig-31 is an entirely different story, but you said Mig25.

If the blackbird operated along the borders, the only time MiG and Blackbird would be flying head-on was if the MiG was heading from the opposite direction in the same line of the movement.This is probably something that didn't happen too often. I assume even if there was a high closure problem, the russians knew of it and ussed tactics that allowed the problem to be eliminated(Afterall, there were considerably more Foxbats than blackbirds, which allowed 3-4 foxbats to fly against a single blackbird).

Doesn't matter. It's an issue of Kinematics. The Mig's simply lacked the legs(the range) to get into proper intercept positions in time.

In any other conflict scenario, MiG had the upper hand, due to its higher maneuverability at high speeds which allowed it to change course more rapidly than the blackbird was ever capable of.

I am beginning to be convinced you're just making this shiit up.

MiG-31 was even more deadlier to the blackbird with the more powerfull radar and longer ranged rockets. I suspect that a single foxbat had about a 30-50% chance of killing the blackbird, all depending on from which angles the intercept was made and a 80% or higher for a single MiG-31 flown against the Blackbird. Offcourse, we will (luckily) never know the outcome for sure.

The 80% PK for the Mi-31 is an ABJECT JOKE, but the FACT is that mig-31s operting in four or six ships COULD intercept an SR-71 pretty easily, and they did so in at least one well documented case.

Here is a SAM/Interceptor intercept envelope diagram drawn up for me by air warfare expert Stuart Slade:



At the bottom of the diagram right in the center you place your SAM site or Airfield.

The outward expansion of the 'double cone' at the bottom represents the restriction of the artificial horizon, then as altitude is gained the maximum stated range of a SAM or interceptor comes into play, but as ALTITUDE IS INCREASED the cone again begins to narrow- this represents THE TIME/FUEL CONSUMPTION TO CLIMB.

As can be seen, at extreme altitude where the SR operates an intercept is all but impossible anywhere but DIRECTLY OVER the airbase or SAM site in question. At those altitudes it is EXTREMELY simple to screw up the intercept plot, hence even a 5 degree banking turn or 100kt increase in speed being more than adequate to guarantee evasion. The only time you can get past this is if you know EXACTLY where the enemy is going to fly, and you have A/C already waiting at near the same altitude.

Barring that, forget about it.