The MiG-25 was a classic example of both the good and bad things about the Soviet system. AS an aircraft, it was built for a single purpose, to locate and kill the American B-70. Congress cancelled the B-70 while it was in prototype stage. The Soviets kept building the MiG-25, because their bureaucracy was even more fooooked up then our and once they got started on a weapon, it was difficult to get them to stop.
The MiG-25 itself was a very low tech design, which has it's advantages when the people working on it are low tech themselves. It's not easy to get somone who has NEVER seen an airplane to become an acomplishe aircraft technician in just 3 years. And if they did reach the level of profeciency that the west has, they will leave the military when their period of service is up.. You cannot run a modern military with conscripts. The more enlightened members of the Soviet military hierarchy knew this. Stalin knew it, which is why he wanted a LOT of simple machines. That is also why the Soviets lost over 12 million in WW2 (The Great Patriotic War).
When technology meets numbers, the body counts go WAAAY up there.
The MiG-25 was as simple a design as the Soviets could manufacture AND STILL GET THE JOB DONE. The Job, remember, was intercepting and destroying high altitude Mach 2+ bombers. Because of the backwardness of Soviet radar equipment, the Foxbat ( NATO code name) has the most powerful radr to be put in an aircraft, up to that time. It also had two of the most powerful jet engines every put in 1 airframe.
The result was a cheap, robust aitcraft that would fly at Mach 2.5 or so and get up there to about 25 Km's or so.
Of course, by this time the USA had given up on the XB-70, to develop this;
http://www.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?fsID=81
In it's early confiuguration the B-1 could outrun a Foxbat at almost any aktitude, especially on the deck, where the radar coverage isn't so good for a high power low tech radar.
And the B-2 was being dreamed of.
So the Soviets dsid the same thing with te Foxbat that the USA did with the SR-71 Blackbird. Turned it into a recon plane. How did this get so far offtopic? I think I was trapped. Cleve rooskies, go back to your wodka.
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