FOXBAT PART-1

 So this incident dates back to May 1997, almost 26 years ago and the location is Pakistan's capital city, Islamabad. It was a usual summer day, everything was going normal as it used to daily but suddenly a really loud noise was heard as if there was a cloud burst and this noise shook the entire city, because it wasn't everyday that such a peculiar sound was heard. To find out about this loud noise, Pakistan put its Air Defence Radars to work which found out that an aircraft, at a really high speed was flying towards India. But the Pakis knew that it wasn't their aircraft, then whose aircraft was it?

The aircraft was none other than the Indian Air Force's most secretive aircraft MIG - 25 FOXBAT whose Indian nickname was "GARUDA"!

The loud sound that shattered the skies of Islamabad was nothing else but this MIG - 25's sonic boom generated by its supersonic speed. 

 But do you know that MIG - 25 operated by the IAF then was the best during its time and there was no other aircraft in the Asia - Pacific region to match the level of efficiency! Not only that, the aircraft even had some special features which even the modern day aircrafts lack. 

Today I'm going to tell some more interesting facts about this Mig 25 Foxbat which I guess not everyone knows about. 

Mig 25 Foxbat was such a secret aircraft of the IAF that just a few weeks prior before its decommissioning in 2006 its existence was made public. This fighter was a part of the 102 Trisonics Squadron based at the Bareilly Air Force Base. Livefist founder Mr Shiv Aroor was the first Indian journalist who in 2006 visited Bareilly AF Base and reported about this aircraft for the very first time. 

This Mig 25 Foxbat gave a 25 year service to the IAF and worked as a super spy in the air for the nation. With excellent reconnaissance capabilities, this aircraft has helped gain extremely precious intelligence about India's hostile adversaries and this aircraft was so confidential that during its 25 year tenure only 42 pilots have operated it. Only selected pilots and a few top IAF Officials knew about its existence. It is said that until it was retired, no one in the country knew that we had a Mig 25 in operation. 

This aircraft has many records under its sleeve like it was the fastest aircraft which was in service by a nation's military. Other than this it has the highest service ceiling which meant that the record for flying at the maximum height is with this aircraft. Just like these there are numerous other records under its belt and some of them haven't been broken till date.

There was a major incident which occurred in September 1976 when America stumbled across this Soviet Union's super secret aircraft. This happened when Soviet pilot Viktor Belenko was conducting a space flight and the engine of this aircraft caught fire. The pilot was successful in landing at Japan's Hakodate airport. It is said that when this aircraft landed, it only had a reserve fuel that could barely last 30 seconds which meant a delay of 30 odd seconds here and there could've been fatal.

After landing in Japan, the aircraft was disintegrated and after an inspection the US experts were awestruck because such a high performance aircraft was made up of nickel steel alloy, which they believed to be made of titanium. They were more shocked to see that the welding done was handmade. Not only that, reapers were used in this aircraft. Many experts laughed on its vacuum tube radar but a few experts had understood that the decision of not using solid state tech by the Soviets was correct so that if the plane had to go through a nuclear blast, its radars would still be working. This aircraft's bold simplicity had everyone astonished and it took the experts a lot of time to understand it thoroughly. There were even reports that this aircraft was sent back to the Soviets in 40 different boxes. Soviet Union did complaint about a few missing parts and sent Japan a $100 million dollar bill but in return Japan sent Soviet Union a $40K bill for damaging their airport and the aircraft's shipping cost. 

One of Mig 25's specialty was its supersonic speed and its manufacturers claimed that it could achieve a speed of more than Mach 3, although it wasn't flown on Mach 3 on a regular basis because flying it at such a high speed regularly could cause the engines to burn out. But yes a sustained flight of Mach 2-2.3 could've been conducted. Now its a different thing if you talk about aircrafts like SR-71, despite Mig 25 not being the fastest anymore but these SR-71s and other such aircrafts were experimental and weren't used regularly in service with only a few units manufactured. But Foxbat was very used in service and made for combat.

The chances of Soviet Union exporting this aircraft to others could've been really really low if in 1976,

the Viktor Belenko case did not compromise its secrecy. But because this aircraft and its capabilities had come forth in front of the world, the Soviets decided to export it to friendly foreign countries.

The nickname 'Foxbat' wasn't given to it by the Soviets but by NATO.

IAF inducted the Mig 25 fleet in 1981 and bought the Mig 25 R variant which was merely a reconnaissance version and not an interceptor or bomber version, completely unarmed, unfit for combat, neither did it have any modern measures to combat SAMs. The only defense mechanism of this Mig 25 R was it supersonic speed and its capability of flying at really high altitudes which no other aircraft possessed. Because IAF required strategic recce, so the decision of buying this aircraft was taken. 

The point to be noted is that we're talking about the 80s where recce through satellites was quite a futuristic thing because not every nation possessed a satellite and those that did have it, did not easily share it. Back then the aerial platform we did have for surveillance/reconnaissance could be easily intercepted and that's why India required such a platform whose answer was unmatchable by anyone, neither China nor Porkistan. India bought 10 Mig 25s, out of which 8 were single seated while 2 were twin seated. This fighter's fleet primarily worked for India's R&AW's premier technical intelligence arm ARC, Aviation Research Centre. The capability of R&AW to collect foreign intelligence was enhanced by this Mig 25.

This aircraft's capabilities can be understood by the fact that one of the few lucky pilots to have operated it stated that, 

"From the height at which we fly, you can see the entire Himalayan range in one go. No aircraft has ever been able to achieve for us what Foxbat has". ~Wing Commander Sanjeev Taliyan

The capabilities Foxbat has helped us to achieve haven't been achieved by any aircraft till date. There is no doubt that Mig 25 was a jumbo jet in every parameter.

That's it for the first part guys. THANK YOU for reading this boring ass shit till the end. Keep tuned for part-2 of Mig 25 Foxbat and other such interesting stories. See you soon...