The Story of IAF MiG-25 over Islamabad

[danger007]

Being idiot is not a crime..



Shut up and get lost if you have nothing to contribute to this thread.

looks like OP hit lot of nerves... that is why members are going for personal attacks..

 

[gslv mk3]

 

[DESERT FIGHTER]

Being idiot is not a crime..

In your case it sure is..

Shut up and get lost if you have nothing to contribute to this thread.

Indians first got a look into this aircraft, when a team of Indian Air Force Officers were in, then, Soviet Union to evaluate aircrafts that fulfilled Air Staff Requirements [ASR] drawn up by the Indian Air Force. In midst of the evaluation, they were informed of the availability of the MiG-25 for acquisition by India.

"When the team returned to Moscow, the Soviets offered flight evaluation of the Mig-25. at the Krasnodar air base. Air Mshl Katre formed a team consisting of AVM Wollen, Gp Capt Ramu and Wg Cdr Madhav Rao to carry out the evaluation. The team flew down to Krasnodar and Gp Capt Ramu flew two sorties in a Mig-25 U two seat trainer version. He thus became the first IAF plot to fly this legendary aircraft."

A brief description of the flight by Air Marshal [then, Group Captain] P.M. Ramachandran himself,

"I flew from the front cockpit with Col Uvarov of USSR in the rear cockpit which happens to be the Captain's!! I flew two sorties in Mig 25 UB on 25th Apr 1979 out of Krasnador air base. In the second sortie, I climbed to 26 kms and 2.6 mach. Time from brakes off to cruise at 23 kms / 2.3 M with 2 U turns during climb was 7 mnts 40 secs!I was wearing the same model pressure suit that Yuri Gagarin used!"[/quoted lease cry me a river .. And than drown in it..

 

[gslv mk3]

In your case it sure is..

Shut up and get lost if you have nothing to contribute to this thread.

 

[Basel]

engagement was not authorized due to some reason, although HQ2s were capable of engaging as the plane was continuously monitored. After that PAF even had plans to bring back Star Fighters n upgrade them but later it was not implemented.

@Munir @Aeronaut @gambit

 

[gslv mk3]

MiGnificent flying machines

shiv aroor
Posted online: Sunday, April 16, 2006 at 0000 hrs IST

The air force station at Bareilly is like any other airbase in the country. Clean, well maintained, neatly pruned hedges, shining insignias and signs all around, even flowers blooming in the summer heat. Everyone here likes it this way — unobtrusive, quiet, sober, the dust and din of Bareilly town well outside the forbidding gates.
Till now, the same forbidding gates have guarded one of the force’s most abiding secrets. The dog squads of the early 1980s have been replaced by much more effective metal cordons, separating 35 Squadron, codenamed Rapiers, from the rest of the picturesque station. For a good 25 years, the base has guarded a few precious machines that no outsider was ever allowed to see.
Obviously, the machines served the force well. And, finally, the IAF decided that the machines have served enough. So two weeks ahead of the May 1 phase-out deadline, the IAF agreed to ‘declassify’ some of its mysteries. It was the privilege of two Express journalists to be the first inside the IAF’s MiG-25 Foxbat spyplane unit.

After a revelatory three-hour tour of the base, the MiG-25 turns out nothing like what the drawing-room legends have thrown it up to be.
It is a great deal more.
The traditional secrecy lingers, but there is no longer any doubt. Ask anyone, including the intensely passionate base commander Air Commodore Shankar Mani, about whether the Foxbats were hurriedly purchased in 1981 to spy on Pakistan and China, and he will tell you: “They were bought for strategic reconnaissance. That should answer your question.”
Unlike the fierce Cold War arms race, the Foxbat represented a typically radical swerve away from the way the world was moving in the 1960s and 70s.
A big mammoth of an aircraft, powered by huge twin engines, flying three times the speed of sound and over three times higher than the maximum altitude allowed to civil airliners, the MiG-25 was the perfect monster the Indian government — and especially then Air Chief Idris Latif — needed to gun up IAF’s virtually non-existent reconnaissance capability in the late 1970s to spy on Pakistan and China.
Latif, now leading a retired life in Hyderabad, pulled out his old albums three days ago to reminisce. Over the phone, he said, “I am saddened that our Foxbats will soon be gone, but they served an intensely useful purpose. When I was the IAF chief, I was shocked and delighted to learn that the Soviets were actually offering MiG-25 Foxbats to us in 1980. I phoned up Mrs (Indira) Gandhi and she told me to go ahead and make a decision. She was a brilliant leader to work with. The Foxbat was the best in the world and it was made available to us.”
A month before he retired, Latif took a Foxbat up 90,000 feet to say farewell to his force.
The other incident widely speculated upon was how in 1987, then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi shot down a suggestion from the Air chief that the Foxbats be used to spy on Pakistani armoured movements. It was a particularly hostile time in the Western sector.
The incumbent chief at the time, Dennis La Fontaine, now living a less hectic life at his farmhouse in Brahmanapally village in Andhra Pradesh, told The Sunday Express: “Those were issues of national security. If you believe that strategic reconnaissance is a bad thing, then understand that military intelligence gathering, by its very nature, is illegal. These are understood around the world. Why pick up these issues long past?”
La Fontaine was about to undertake a flight in a Foxbat when he was Central Air Commander, but by the time he arrived at the base, he received orders appointing him Western Air Commander, and so a dream remained unfulfilled.

An enigma shrouds the Foxbat. Entirely unarmed — the IAF chose the reconnaissance variant, not the interceptor — and with no modern countermeasures against surface-launched missiles, the Foxbat’s only defence lies in its speed and cruising altitude.
At Mach 3, it leaves even the best guided missiles far behind in a chase, and at 90,000 feet, it is comfortably beyond actionable ground radar beams. Put together, the MiG-25 is simply invisible to the enemy.
In 1997, an IAF Foxbat famously darted into Pakistani airspace and its sonic boom alerted ground radars into action. But zooming back towards the Indian border, the Foxbat was just a blur to Pakistani air defence missiles and F-16s scrambling up from Sargodha.
Interestingly, the initial lifespan of the MiG-25s was to be just 14 years and the planes would have been gone by 1995. The year saw them put to amazing use darting up to the stratosphere to get crystal-clear photographs of the solar eclipse, the sun’s rays untouched and unscattered by interfering atmospheric molecules.
One of the two pilots who flew that mission is also the seniormost and most experienced Foxbat pilot still in service, Air Vice Marshal Sumit Mukerji, assistant chief at Air Headquarters.
“It was an experiment that worked. Not only did we film the diamond ring of the eclipse, but also the starburst, when the sun’s light filtered through the crevasses and mountains on the moon. It was an amazing image. And from that height and speed, we were able to film the eclipse for a minute and 57 seconds, impossible from the ground,” he said.
In 1995, a life extension programme pushed the MiG-25s for another ten years. In 2001, another programme propelled the jets until 2005. The final extension was made last year. Finally, the IAF decided the machines wouldn’t be pushed any more.

Predictably, it is now exorbitantly expensive and time-consuming to maintain the Foxbats. With the Russians no longer supplying spares and claiming to have done away with all blueprints, any more reverse engineering by the technicians at the Bareilly airbase is plainly uneconomical.
Wing Commander Jayapal Patil, the technical officer who currently keeps the jets in ship-shape on their final run, said, “These aircraft have flown for 25 years at high speeds, so there is a level of aerodynamic strain. After the first life extension, we inspected and strengthened the jet’s mounting points, and changes made to the landing gear. But the aircraft are now at their end.”
Base commander Shankar Mani is more forthright: “Now, if there’s a problem, we have to struggle to even find a fuel leak because it is such an enormous and complex machine. The Russians don’t help us with spares or blueprints. On the flipside, we’ve gained precious expertise maintaining the Foxbats entirely ourselves.”
The apparent romance of flying spying missions in such brutally powerful aircraft is severely eroded by the reality of multiple dangers pilots are always just inches away from and the indispensable discomforts of flying in extreme conditions.
First, of course, there’s the fear. Knowing that you’re sitting on 20 tons of jet fuel and moving at screaming velocities can get unnerving.
Secondly, you’re in a decidedly uncomfortable skin-tight suit to stop your blood from boiling over and rupturing your skin.
Thirdly, you’re always faced with the prospect of a 60,000 foot free fall if you ever have to eject from that altitude before your parachute opens. It has never happened, so nobody knows if a pilot will survive such a long drop through far below freezing temperatures.
But Wing Commander Alok Chauhan, one of the two pilots who took a Foxbat into the skies exclusively for this newspaper’s cameras, sums it up like only a Foxbat pilot can: “When you’re up that high, and you can see the earth’s curvature and the blue band of the atmosphere, there’s a serene sense of detachment, a feeling of physical separation that is hard to match and difficult to describe.”
Spiritual, maybe.
Sworn to secrecy

• In mission room, only three men (pilot, tech officer and mission commander) go over the spying mission; information reaches nobody else

• Mission commander briefs pilot on flight path, altitude, other parameters, technical officer makes assessment of mission demands on jet

• New celluloid wheels loaded, technical inspection done

• Pilot takes off, flight-path fed into mission computer. Just nothing on paper

• Four cameras operated either manually by pilot or pre-programmed to start taking snaps at designated altitude, time from take-off

• After mission, pilot debriefed for any event unrecorded by cameras, observation or hostile “incident”

• Films transported to main processing lab

• Photos cropped, enhanced, enlarged according to requirement, dispatched to operations room for inspection by mission commander

• Intelligence either archived or communicated through secure channels on a need basis up the chain of command; information digitalised if need be

• All archives classified, categorised and securely stowed away
— ENS
Inside a 30-tonner, at Mach 3 and ABOVE 70,000 feet...
• At 3.2 Mach, MiG-25’s the fastest aircraft in service, quicker than a missile
• It’s a gas guzzler: twin Tumansky turbofans burn 23,000 litres in a single long mission
• Serial production began in 1969 but West had its first look at a MiG-25 when Lt Viktor Belenko of the Soviet Union defected on Sept 6, 1976, landing his aircraft at Hakodate in Japan
• Built mainly out of nickel-steel, plus titanium in heat-critical areas. Weighs nearly 30 tonnes
• Beyond 70,000 ft, pilots use same skintight inners, helmets as Russian cosmonauts
• Russians pushed a Foxbat to 123,000 ft, IAF sticks to a 90,000 ft ceiling
• Entered Indian service in 1981 with the No.102 Trisonics in Bareilly
• IAF had 8 single-seat Mig-25R for high-speed reconnaissance, and 2 twin-seat MiG-25U for conversion training
• Can map one lakh sq-km in four-five sorties
• Without leaving Bareilly airspace, a Foxbat can eyeball Delhi with its 1200 mm cameras. So if it’s flying over Punjab or Kashmir, can check on Pak
• Outlived competitor SR-71 Blackbird of the USAF
• MiG-25s were also used by Algeria, Bulgaria, Egypt, Iraq, Libya and Syria. But not many remain in service
‘The MiG-25s are still in perfect working condition’

• The field of vision from the MiG-25 is 1,100-km and its clarity of perspective remain unsurpassed. These planes have served their utility. We are moving to a higher network-centric warfare capability.
— Air Commodore Shankar Mani, Base Commander, AFS Bareilly

• The MiG-25s are still in perfect condition. Even at the time of phase out, all systems are working fine. We even made structural changes to the undercarriage all by ourselves.
— Wing Commander Jayapal Patil, Rapiers Sqn Technical Officer

‘Most in IAF have not even seen this base or the MiG-25’

• Most in the IAF have not even seen this base or the aircraft. Frankly, we can push our Foxbats for another 2-3 years, but after three life extensions, it’s prudent to retire them now.—
Wing Commander Alok Chauhan, Rapiers Sqn MiG-25 pilot

• After 25 years, letting go of the Foxbat is sentimental. It has done what it was inducted to do. My job is to wind up the squadron and raise a new MiG-21 unit.
— Wing Commander Manish Khanna, Commanding Officer, Rapiers Sqn

although HQ2s were capable of engaging as the plane was continuously monitored. After that PAF even had plans to bring back Star Fighters n upgrade them but later it was not implemented.

Source ?

 

[DESERT FIGHTER]

No but reality really hurt you my South Indian Pal:

Pathankot raid..rofl:

looks like OP hit lot of nerves... that is why members are going for personal attacks..

 

[gslv mk3]

Faster, higher, out of reach-The nation says farewell to the MiG-25 Foxbat
Vijay Mohan


For 25 years it was India’s elusive eye in the sky, keeping a constant watch over the enemy deep inside his own territory and yet remaining beyond his reach. It was the awesome MiG-25, capable of flying too fast and too high to care much about enemy radars, fighters and missiles.

After all those secret missions over Pakistan and China, the MiG-25s are now set to retire. They are at the end of their lifespan, and so prohibitively expensive to maintain and operate. The formal de-commissioning ceremony is scheduled to be held at the Bareilly Air Force Station, where these aircraft are based, on May 1. The present MiG-25 squadron members as well as officers and personnel who had served in the squadron earlier, including those who have retired, would be attending the ceremony.

It is no secret that the MiG-25 flew in hostile airspace as a matter of routine, though, of course, there are no public records to validate this. One incident which lends credence to this is a “sonic boom” heard over Islamabad in May 1997, which is attributable to a MiG-25 deliberately going supersonic to pique the Pakistanis. The boom caused panic amongst the residents of Islamabad. According to reports, the Pakistani Air Force scrambled its F-16s, but the MiG-25 was too fast and too high for them.

Cruising in the outer fringes of the atmosphere, the 40-tonne MiG-25 had no parallel in the arena of gathering high value intelligence and strategic reconnaissance, and gave the IAF an immense advantage. Flying at nearly three times the speed of sound at altitudes above 90,000 feet, it was too high and fast for any fighter to intercept or missile to lock on to. Their task would now be taken over by satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles, supplemented with combat aircraft equipped with reconnaissance pods.

The MiG-25s are also believed to have monitored Chinese troop movements in NEFA following reports of incursions in the eighties and early nineties, photographed militant training camps across the Line of Control, mapped enemy positions during Operation Vijay in Kargil in 1999 and kept a close eye on Pakistani formations during Operation Parakram in 2002. Given the capabilities of its high-powered cameras, it could have accomplished much of the work while flying within Indian airspace.

It was in 1981 that the Indian Air Force procured eight MiG-25R single seat reconnaissance aircraft and two MiG-25U conversion trainers from the erstwhile Soviet Union. These were flown to India in a dismantled state and assembled and flight-tested by the Russians at Bareilly. The induction of these aircraft led to the IAF raising the highly secretive No.102 Squadron, nicknamed Trisonics, with Wg Cdr A. Singh as its first Commanding Officer (CO). Codenamed Foxbat by NATO, the aircraft was christened Garuda by the IAF, after the high flying celestial mount of Lord Vishnu in Indian mythology.

The MiG-25 made its official debut in Indian skies on August 25, 1981, when the then Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal I.H. Latif flew a sortie in a two-seater trainer. A month before he retired, he took a MiG-25 up to 90,000 feet.

For induction of the MiG-25, a 14-member team of pilots and engineering officers were sent to Russia for training. “It was an intense course lasting six months, consisting of theoretical classes as well as practicals” Air Cmde S.S. Bisht (retd), who was among the Trisonics’ founding members, said. Normally, such pre-induction courses last 3–4 months. “There was a lot of work to be done in the initial stages and the aircraft were in the air every day. Regular night sorties were also flown,” he added.

A mere handful of lucky pilots got to fly the mean machine. Only officers of the level of wing commanders and above who had sufficient experience flying fighters were selected for the squadron. “Given the requirements, we wanted pilots who were senior enough and since flying was restricted due to the nature of operations, pilots who had almost finished their active flying life were chosen,” former Vice Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal P.S Brar said.

Air Marshal Brar also had a chance to fly in a trainer version and he termed the sortie as a “phenomenal experience”. He said that one can count on his fingertips, the number of people who get to fly at nearly three times the speed of sound at a height of over 20 kilometers.

The MiG-25 was designed for reconnaissance and high altitude interception as a counter to the US SR-71 Blackbird strategic reconnaissance aircraft and the XB-70 Valkyrie strategic bombers, both of which were capable of Mach 3 performance. While the super-secret Blackbird remained in US service for several decades, the Valkyrie never went into production.

On October 5, 1967, the MiG-25 set a record of 1852.61 mph (2981 kmph) and carried a 2,000 kg payload to an altitude of 98,349 feet (30 kms). Soviets have taken a MiG 25 to an altitude of 1,23,000 feet.

A slew of altitude and speed records broken by the MiG-25 led to former US Secretary of the Air Force, Robert Seamans describing the MiG-25 as “probably the best interceptor in production in the world today”. Two versions were developed, one a combat version armed with four AA-6 Acrid long range air to air missiles and the other a reconnaissance version carrying several cameras in its nose. A two-seater version for conversion training was also developed.

On September 6, 1976, a defecting Soviet pilot, Lt Viktor Belenko landed his MiG-25 at Hakodate in Japan, giving western experts an opportunity to closely examine it before it was returned.

The IAF closely guarded its precious assets, keeping the MiG-25 terminal off limits to even air force personnel. Even the authorities at the Bareilly airbase were not involved with the squadron’s operations and flying activities. “Given its strategic role, all tasking was directly from Air Headquarters.” Air Marshal D.S Basra (retd) who at one time commanded the Bareilly airbase said.

In the squadron’s operations room, only the mission commander, pilot and the technical officer were permitted entry to discuss a particular sortie and the information remained closeted with other squadron members not involved. The pilot was briefed by the mission commander on the requirements and the technical officer’s responsibility was to ensure serviceability of all onboard surveillance equipment and the inertial navigation system.

After the sortie, the mission commander debriefed the pilot, which included observation of any hostile activity. Pictures taken by onboard cameras are developed and analysed and then sent up the chain of command through secure channels. All pictures are archived according to laid down procedures and categories.

Recalling a visit to the Bareilly airbase, Wg Cdr D.P. Sabharwal said that while he was posted as an instructor at the Air Force Technical College, he wanted to make a comparative study on the engine inlets of the MiG-25 and the MiG-29, but he was not allowed near the tarmac. It was only after special permission was obtained that he was allowed access.

Over the years, due to attrition, the IAF’s inventory has come down to four MiG-25s which includes one trainer. In 2003, No.102 Squadron was “number-plated”, that is disbanded, and the surviving MiG-25s were handed over to No.35 Squadron, the “Rapiers”. The MiG-25 initially had a service life of just 14 years, and were to be decommissioned in 1995. Life extension programmes gave them another 10 years and the final life extension for a year came in 2005. The Russians no longer manufacture this aircraft and are reported to have even done away with technical literature and drawings. Nor are spares available. The IAF had developed indigenous methods for their upkeep, but these aircraft still had to go to Russia for major overhaul.


Fast-forwarding the sun

On October 24, 1995, two IAF pilots, Gp Capt S. Mukherjee and Wg Cdr Y.S. Babu, flying a trisonic MiG-25 witnessed for the first time in history, a total solar eclipse from an altitude of 80,000 feet. They were flying from Kalpi to Ikadala, south-west of Kanpur. This is an excerpt from Wg Cdr Babu’s account of the sortie, published in an official air force journal, Flight Safety:

Our attention was focused on flying parameters and it was only when the red glow of the instruments panel filled the cockpit that we realised that the sunlight had gone. It had become a dark night and the sky was filled with stars all round. In spite of the foresight, planning and expectations, it was all so sudden, so eerie and so exciting. The whole process was like rapidly fast forwarding a sunset and then a sunrise.

At 80,000 feet (25kms) above sea level, pilots do see stars and the sky appears grey rather than blue because of the absence of dust, air and water molecules. But this time, during totality, the sky suddenly turned inky dark without notice. The curvature of the Earth could also be seen from this height.

At a speed of Mach 2.5, we got to see about 90 seconds of totality, while those on ground got to see only 55 seconds.

 

[DESERT FIGHTER]

Shut up and get lost if you have nothing to contribute to this thread.

Get lost you potty mouthed dim witted troll:

 

[gslv mk3]

No but reality really hurt you my South Indian Pal:

And where are all the moderators ? No thread bans ,warnings & infractions ? Or does this apply only to Indian members.

Get lost you potty mouthed dim witted troll:

what exactly is this troll doing here @Chak Bamu