The Foxbat could fly at extreme speeds—but in doing so, it would risk damage to the airframe and engines, which were far less sophisticated than their American counterparts.
The National Museum of the United States Air Force is home to no shortage of historic aircraft, including the famed B-17 “Memphis Belle,” the B-29 “Bockscar” that dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, an original U-2 Dragon Lady, and even an F-117 Nighthawk.
Joining the collection, albeit temporarily, is a surprising outlier: the museum’s Mikoyan Gurevich MiG-25 (NATO reporting name “Foxbat”) fighter jet. The Russian-made aircraft will be on display for six months, beginning on October 7, the museum announced in a social media post on Friday.
The MiG-25RB aircraft was recovered outside the Al Taqaddum Airbase in Iraq in 2003 in the opening months of the ground campaign during Operation Iraqi Freedom. The fighter had been buried in sand at the base, located west of Baghdad, reportedly to prevent its destruction as coalition aircraft sought to destroy the Iraqi Air Force on the ground.
This particular MiG-25 is incomplete, however, as its wings had been removed, and weren’t located, while its vertical stabilizers had been removed for transport to the museum in 2006. Restoration efforts have been ongoing, and this will mark the first time any Foxbat has been put on display in the United States.
The MiG-25 Foxbat’s Specifications
- Year Introduced: 1970
- Number Built: ~1,190
- Length: 23.82 m (78 ft 2 in)
- Wingspan: 14.01m (46 ft)
- Weight:
- Empty – 20,000 kg (44,092 lb)
- Standard conditions – 36,720 kg (80,954 lb)
- Engines: Two (2) Tumansky R-15B-300 afterburning turbojet engines, each providing about 100.1 kN (22,500 lbf) thrust with afterburner.
- Top Speed: Mach 2.83 (~2,080 mph; ~3,430 km/h)
- Range: 1,730 km (935 miles)
- Service Ceiling: 27,000 m (89,000 ft)
- Loadout: Four air-to-air missiles
- Aircrew: 1
The MiG-25 Fighter Was Fast—and Unsafe
The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 was the last aircraft designed by legendary Soviet aircraft designer Mikhail Gurevich before his retirement, and it was developed as a supersonic interceptor and reconnaissance aircraft. Even today, it remains among the fastest military aircraft to enter service, and is the fastest manned serially produced aircraft in operational use.
“When the USSR debuted the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 ‘Foxbat’ in the 1960s, US officials were extremely wary of the fighter’s alleged prowess. The Foxbat, like all of the airframes produced during this tense time period, was born out of the arms race between Washington and the USSR,” Maya Carlin explained for The National Interest.
The Soviet interceptor was developed to counter the US Air Force’s SR-71 Blackbird and other high-speed aircraft, including the then-experimental XF-108 Rapier and XB-70 Valkyrie bomber. The Foxbat may have seemed advanced at a distance, but those looks were deceiving.
The Foxbat’s capabilities were better understood in 1976, when disgruntled Soviet fighter pilot Flight Lieutenant Viktor Belenko defected with his MiG-25 to an airport on the Japanese island of Hokkaido.
What first surprised Western observers was the aircraft’s size. It was enormous—just a few feet shorter than a World War II-era Lancaster bomber. The reason it reached that size was to accommodate its massive Tumansky R-15B-300 afterburning turbojet engines.
Still, the plane was not as advanced as some had speculated. Unlike the Blackbird, which was built from titanium to withstand the heat generated by friction at high speeds, the Foxbat was constructed mainly from a nickel-steel alloy and was assembled by hand welding. The Foxbat could fly at extreme speeds—but in doing so, it would risk damage to the airframe and engines. Moreover, because of its size, it was easy to track on radar, and when the Americans took apart the aircraft flown to Japan, it was discovered that the technology within was antiquated, including vacuum tubes rather than transistors. Interestingly, that ensured that it was still resistant to an electromagnetic pulse such as a nuclear blast.
The aircraft was widely exported to Soviet allies and non-aligned states in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. It first entered service with the Iraqi Air Force in 1980, subsequently serving in the Iran-Iraq War.
The MiG-25’s Display Is Only Temporary
Multiple MiG-25s are in museums in Russia, including at the Central Air Force Museum and Ulyanovsk Aircraft Museum. Three more are at museums in former Soviet Republics, including at the Estonian Aviation Museum near Tartu; at the State Aviation Museum of Ukraine in Kyiv; and at the Riga Aviation Museum in Riga, Latvia.
As noted, the six-month display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force will be the first opportunity for aviation buffs to ever see a MiG-25 in the United States. Following the temporary exhibit, restoration is likely to continue before the aircraft can be placed on permanent display.
About the Author: Peter Suciu
Peter Suciu has contributed over 3,200 published pieces to more than four dozen magazines and websites over a 30-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a contributing writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. He is based in Michigan. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu. You can email the author: [email protected].
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