Foxhound vs Blackbird: How the MiGs reclaimed the skies Exactly 30 years ago a potent new combat aircraft

appeared in the skies over Russia. Without firing a shot in anger, the MiG-31 achieved what Soviet air defence had been attempting for years send the SR-71 spy plane into early retirement. From its first flight in 1972 to its retirement in 1989, the SR-71 Blackbird was the highest flying and fastest air breathing aircraft in operation. Flying at Mach 3.3 (over three times the speed of sound) virtually at the edge of space, it was too high and too fast for any interceptor aircraft to catch. As well snooping over the worlds trouble spots such as Vietnam and the Middle East, the SR-71 also conducted highly provocative flights close to the Soviet Unions borders, spying on submarine activity in the Arctic seas. Although the Mach 3.2 MiG-25 Foxbat could in theory have shot it down with its air to air missiles, there were two reasons it could not. One, the Foxbat could not sustain a Mach 3 chase for long. Secondly, the SR-71 never trespassed into Soviet territory even if it sometimes "tickled" it that is it came right up to the borders. This was unacceptable to the Soviet military which had become obsessed with the inviolability of its national borders after the harrowing experiences of the Second World War. The intruder had to be pushed back. Enter the Foxhound Early in the year 1982 the Mikoyan-Gurevich aircraft bureau started deliveries of a new combat aircraft to the Protivo Vozdushnoy Oborony or PVO the Air Defence Forces of the Soviet Union. (The PVO was separate from the Russian Air Force or VVS.) This new aircraft was the multi-functional MiG-31 an airborne weapons platform with the principal task of the hunting down US Strategic Air Command (SAC) bombers and air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs). It was an aircraft so far ahead of its time that today, 30 years after its first deployment, the Israelis, fearful of its firepower and extended reach, have pressured Moscow to call off a planned sale to the Syrian Air Force. The authoritative website Air Power Australia says, The Foxhound is truly a supersonic interceptor capable of sustained cruise at supersonic speeds. On a supersonic intercept cruise it has a radius of 722 km.....increasing to 2200 km with inflight refuelling. This is a capability with no equivalent in the West. Among the features that catapulted the Mach 2.8 aircraft into aviation folklore was a look down, shoot down radar that could take out stealthy, low flying ALCMs. Also, four MiG-31s flying 200 km apart could swap their radar data and patrol an 800 km front. Plus, in an era when contemporary fighter aircraft groped around clueless, the MiG31s massive radar had the unique ability to scan 10 enemy aircraft and engage four of them with missiles. Epic encounter In September 1983 a tragedy occurred when a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 was shot down by a Sukhoi-15 after the airliner intruded deep into Soviet air space. What was unknown to the world was that the night of the incident had been a particularly tense time for Soviet air defence forces as the SR-71 was conducting a spy flight in coordination with other American aircraft and a Big Bird spy satellite. German aviation journalist Stefan Buttner has given a gripping account of what happened next, in the October 2010 issue of the magazine Combat Aircraft:

Following the event, a special-purpose group comprising four MiG-31s under the command of Vladimir Ivlev, was despatched to Sokol Air Base in Sakhalin later that month. The group's main task was to combat incursions by the SR-71. With Moscow's authorisation the four crews set up demonstrations sorties with the new aircraft, using their radar to prevent the Blackbird from flying along the Soviet border. "The crew would fly out on an intercept course to close with the target, and then switch the radar to radiation mode and report to their ground controllers when they had detected the target at around 300-320 km. They would then continue to close with the target, and at 120-150 km target lock-on would be achieved, whereupon the crew would report readiness to attack." At this point the SR-71's missile approach warning system would trigger; the American crew would find themselves the hunted, and unable to hold their nerve, there was no course of action for them other than to engage afterburner and run for home. Arctic patrol Prior to that, says Buttner, a squadron in Monchegorsk Air Base near the Arctic port of Murmansk had been equipped with the MiG-31, at the end of April 1983 and the first MiG-31 sortie scrambled against an SR-71 on the following day. The Monchegorsk MiGs were assigned the task of intercepting the SR-71s flying in from the UKs Mildenhall Air Base, which was considered Americas gateway to Europe. While the commanders at Monchegorsk Air Base jumped with joy, not all pilots shared the same enthusiasm, as the rejection rate was extremely high. Only the top air aces could pass the requirements to fly such a modern and expensive aircraft, which was also tasked with such a dangerous mission. In fact, several pilots opted out. Captain Mikhail Myagkiy was among the elite fighter pilots chosen to fly these new MiGs. Over a period of four years, Myagkiy alone executed 14 successful intercepts of the SR-71 near the borders of the Soviet Union in the far north. Blackbird cometh The spy plane usually appeared from the direction of Norway, tearing in toward the White Sea and then north toward Novaya Zemlya before turning around on a reverse course to the west over the Arctic Ocean. This track was called a straight loop. But sometimes it came in from the Arctic toward Novaya Zemlya, then south toward the White Sea, then to the west along the Russian coast toward Norway. This was called the return loop. The arrival of the SR-71 set off alarms along the entire spectrum of Soviet defences the radars went berserk, the SAM batteries were on full alert and the pilots scrambled. It must be mentioned that the missile defence forces possessed the capability to successfully destroy the 'intruder'. In an interview to Russian aviation expert Valery Romanenko for Paul Crickmores gripping book Lockheed Blackbird: Beyond The Secret Missions, Myagkiy mentions that Soviet counter-intelligence desperately hoped the American plane would actually cross the borders, even if inadvertently. For, that would have given them the perfect excuse to shoot it down with SAMs. However, SR-71 pilots had a highly accurate navigation system which tracked 61 stars day or night to stay on course, and consequently they rarely made mistakes. Precision attack

Myagkiy says intercepting a superfast aircraft like the SR-71 required precisely coordinated actions on the part of every department of the PVO the vector tracking stations on the ground, the air crews that prepared the aircraft, the commanders who devised last minute tactics and of course the pilots who went up for the interception. The scheme for intercepting the SR-71 was computed down to the last second, and the MiGs had to launch exactly 16 minutes after the initial alert. During this period of time the ground vectoring station determined what route (out route or return route) the SR-71 was following, he says. Myagkiy explains the tension of those days, on his eighth intercept, on January 31, 1986: They alerted us for an SR-71 intercept at 11.00. They sounded the alarm with a shrill bell and then confirmed it with a loudspeaker. The appearance of an SR-71 was always accompanied by nervousness. Everyone began to talk in frenzied voices, to scurry about, and react to the situation with excessive emotion. Taking off with Aleksey Parshin, his Weapons Service Officer, their aircraft breaks the sound barrier at 26,000 ft. The standard practice among MiG-31 pilots was to avoid using radar because on combat patrol they were set on combat frequencies. One of the missions of the SR-71 was to parse out these secret frequencies and the Russians were in no mood to oblige. At any rate, the SR-71s huge thermal signature was easily captured by the MiGs passive thermal sights, and its cockpit target indicator showed the distance to the SR-71. At 52,000 ft, Myagkiys aircraft achieves an infrared lock on the SR-71 at 120 km. After the aircrafts sensors capture the target, a target indicator showing the range to the SR-71 appears in the HUD. The aircrafts computer automatically feeds the data to the missiles, and four green triangles appear on the target illuminated in the headup display. The engagement envelope of the missiles is also projected on the HUD. A computerised female voice named Rita inside his earphones announces Attack. Working in his favour is the fact that the massive fighter at 46,000 kg, as heavy as a Tu-134 airliner is getting lighter every second as it rapidly burns its fuel supply, thereby accelerating even faster. Within seconds the MiG is now at 65,676 ft and the computer announces the Attack order again. The Blackbird is now flying a mere 8000 ft above him and Myagkiy has a visual sighting of the aircraft and its contrail. Had the spy plane violated Soviet airspace, a live missile launch would have been carried out. There was practically no chance the aircraft could avoid an R-33 missile. But the SR-71 does not violate the border, and as the Blackbird flies on a straight loop to Novaya Zemlya, Myagkiy breaks off the attack and returns to base. It must have been equally stressful for the SR-71 pilots. They knew they were playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse and there was no guarantee the Soviets wouldnt shoot them down. It was one thing to simply know that the SAMs were capable of bringing them down, but to have heavily armed and aggressive aircraft intercepting them at those unreal altitudes and being chased for up to 15 minutes (with missile lock warnings blaring inside the cockpit) was undoubtedly a stomach churning affair. The intercepts had their intended effect. In the narrow northern corridor, the SR-71s missions were now planned farther and farther from Soviet airspace because of the MiG threat. Renowned film maker Peter Ustinov also confirms this outcome in his documentary Wings Over Russia. Swedish experience The Swedish air defence had its own brushes with the SR-71, as the Blackbird flew close to Sweden's coast as well. However, their JA-37 Viggen was not as

spectacularly successful in interceptions. The SR-71 had to manoeuvre only slightly to spoil the Viggens interception plans. But then the Viggen was no Foxhound. However, the Swedes were full of praise for the precision of the MiG pilots. On their radar screens they could see the much older but faster MiG-25 screaming in towards the Blackbird. Shortly after the MiG-31s had harried the SR-71 in the Arctic area, a lone MiG-25 Foxbat stationed at Finow-Eberswalde in the former GDR would intercept it over the Baltic. The Swedes observed that the SR-71 would always fly at 72,000 ft and the MiG-25 would reach 63,000 ft before completing its stern attack 2.9 km behind the Blackbird. "We were always impressed by this precision, it was always 63,000 ft and 2.9 km behind the SR-71," a retired Swedish Air Force flight controller told Crickmore. The final warning However, the Soviet brass wasnt satisfied. They wanted the SR-71 out of the skies entirely. By now, the success achieved by the MiG pilots in safeguarding the skies over Russia had given a boost to the Foxhound programme. One by one the forward air bases of the country were beefed up with the new fighter. In October 1986, MiG31s were despatched to the Komsomol'skii Air Base. In 1985, Archangel and Kamchatka got upgraded to the MiG-31. Yugorskii Peninsula in the White Sea and Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan got theirs in 1986. The intense pressure paid off. On June 3, 1986 flying over the Barents Sea, six Foxhounds performed a co-ordinated intercept against an SR-71 that would have subjected the aircraft to an all-angle AAM attack that even the high speed and altitude and ECM capability of the aircraft would have had great difficulty in defeating. The Soviets had communicated their intentions and the Americans got the message. The SR-71 never came close to Soviet borders after that incident. Just three years later the CIA pulled the aircraft out of the skies. By then virtually all forwarded bases had been equipped with the Foxhound Omsk North airfield in Siberia (1987); Bratsk in Irkutsk and Gromovo in Leningrad (1988); and Sokolovka in the Far East (1989). Satellites vs SR-71 Western military commentators have said that SR-71 became redundant after the arrival of powerful spy satellites (such as the KH series) that are able to recognise faces and read car licence plates on the ground. They feel that intelligence agencies can do the SR-71s job without risking the pilots lives. This argument has no legs. Satellites are strategic platforms that have to be complemented with tactical tools such as aircraft. This is because spy satellites are limited by the laws of orbital mechanics. For instance, it may take up to 24 hours to position a satellite over a certain area, whereas spy planes can be brought into play within hours and can be sent in repeatedly under optimum visibility. Secondly, information on the orbits of most satellites is freely available on the internet so the enemy can hide assets when they know the satellite is overhead. Such information was brilliantly used by Indian scientists to mislead American satellite reconnaissance teams while India was conducting its nuclear tests in Pokhran in 1998. The limitations of satellites were exposed when both retired spy planes, the SR-71 and the U2, were re-inducted to operate over the Middle East during the gulf wars. The U2 continues to fly missions over Iraq. Ageing but still strong

In India, the proverb goes, men and horses are never too old. The Foxhound appears to be no different. It seems to be suffering no midlife crisis and following a major upgrade, the aircraft looks just as potent and sleek as it did 30 years ago. The MiG-31 is now equipped with the super accurate, beyond visual range (BVR) R37 (AA-13 Arrow) air to air missile. In 1994 a trial round killed a target at 300 km, a record for a BVR missile. It is also is fitted with upgraded avionics and digital datalinks, a new multimode radar, colour multi-function cockpit displays, a new, more powerful computer and ability to carry new air-to-air and possibly air-to-surface missiles such as the AS-17 Krypton anti-radar missile. Air Power Australia says the Foxhound is a good example of the Russian practice of wringing every bit of life out of an established design. However, it adds, given that the Foxhounds principal role was the hunting down of SAC bombers and ALCMs, it is questionable whether the aircraft will be of use to its creators in a radically changed political environment. But the Foxhound does play a vital interim role. Until new Russian fifth generation fighter-bombers are available in large numbers, the MiG-31 is well matched to the uniquely Russian problem of covering vast areas with a limited number of aircraft. It is a measure of its mystique that the MiG-31 is believed to be the inspiration behind the 1997 Cold War novel Firefox, which was later made into a hit motion picture of the same name starring Clint Eastwood another ageless wonder.