turkeydriver

"good" is too generic, the radar doesn't compare in capability to Western radars, but it does do one thing extremely well. It is very powerful and designed to burn through jamming quickly. So the general jamming rule of thumb does not apply to the MiG-25 radar. Jamming will only slightly reduce its tracking range, it burns through quickly with raw power. What I do not know is if it has an operating time limit like the MiG-21 or if it can operate continuously. Remember an Iraqi MiG-25 evaded multiple AIM-7/AIM-120 shots from F-15s during OSW and then later an AIM-54 shot the same day- mearly by flying a high speed curve that dragged the missile and destroyed its intercept energy. I'd love flying an unarmed MiG-25RB and trying to photo a target while evading multiple interceptors. That would be awesome!

Too many flight simmers miss out on the awesome exact science of the high speed intercept with high speed BVR missile launches at the weapon's best kill chance. Dogfights are for bragging rights and saving your skin when you make the mistake of letting a bandit get inside your BVR missiles. Great pilots kill at range, and pull the most G in the break over the airfield at home when coming in to land. The MiG-25, properly flown is an elusive target for F-14s and F-15s, while kills have been made, history has shown that proper, prior planning prevented either of the West's greatest fighters from killing the MiG-25. The MiG-25 would be great fun in multiplayer, if we can use its altitude and speed.

Yep, it's a high sided bathtub with ugly ergonomics and that horrible "calming" green- easily as busy as the MiG-21 cockpit, but with a lot more useful info on the HUD...

Sounds like you'd make a good wingman, everyone needs a wingman to take the ugly ones.....

There's some good info in there but realize the book was written when there was a plan to integrate F-14B and F-14D into one squadron, instead of F-14Bs on the East Coast and F-14Ds on the West Coast. Logistics prevented them from combining like is written in the book.

The early F-14B(F-14A+) had the same cockpit as the F-14A, in that they both projected their information on the front flat green windscreen of the canopy and had no specific HUD glass. The F-14B upgrade-for the bombing mission brought with it an off the shelf Sparrowhawk HUD glass that used the symbology and power carrot fro the F-14D HUD, although the Sparrowhawk HUD was wider.

Actually integrating the AMRAAM into the entire F-14 fleet was deemed too expensive-apparently there were problems with old AWG-9.

on the AIM-54C data you speak of.....just no. Of the 3 fired, one followed a MiG-23 into the ground as it ran out of gas trying to escape. The CBG Admiral regarded as a kill. The other two that "missed" never had a chance, the weapons did not "fail", they were loaded incorrectly so the rocket motors had no chance to arm, and they dropped like Mk-83s. Iraqs entire air strategy was based on avoiding F-14s and engaging F-15/16/18 and bombers which they thought they had a a credible chance against. I'll give you that the Iranian record is questionable, but Iraqi pilots weren't stupid, despite lacking flight hours. The AIM-54 was perfect for what it was designed for, and killing maneuvering fighters was a secondary design characteristic.

The cost for AMRAAM integration into the AWG-9/APG-71 was high, but was scheduled. After Desert Storm, that money was diverted to pay for the LANTIRN integration and "bombcat" upgrades for the F-14. They did figure the AIM-54 was good enough to see until the F-14s retirement, and the AIM-54C(high power) in fact used the AMRAAM TWT. So the last AIM-54s were pretty good.

Hail to the King- avenged sevenfold.....

Only if its a super hornet. period. Don't ever bring tanking off a legacy hornet, that's just not possible and unrealistic-couldn't launch with the gas to tank.

1. Flight simming enthusiasm started with shareware SU-25 Stormovik in 1992. Then Falcon 3.0 and Flanker series/LOMAC/to DCS. 2. Watching Top Gun advertising at the Curtis Mathis store at the mall-it replayed the dogfight scene at the end on repeat. 3. just the look, period. The F-14 says, hello I'm a beast, and you aren't. 4. first time was on TV, I saw a commercial at my cousin's house in Wisconsin, and urged my dad to drive home as fast as he could so I could watch it. 5. No, flown on plenty of helos. I did get the awesome privilege of being treated to a personal unrestricted take-off out of Andrews AFB when a VF-31 F-14D left to head back to Oceana. The crew stayed on the deck, lit burners once gear was up as they passed me, then went vertical between the 113th ANG hangars and Air Force One hangars.....showed an AFB how its done right! It was windy that day so my eyes were watering once it was over...

Belated HB Nicholas! Thanks for your awesome work!

Wasn't assumption, just wrong information. I thought I read mishap report saying the damage to the cockpit was too much to justify repair towards the end of its career and it was no longer a flyer. Glad I was wrong.

Pretty sure the aircraft was stricken as a class A mishap and never repaired.

Yes MiG-31 exists due to the need to intercept low-altitude/high speed targets. This mission is either suicide for a single crewed fighter or impossible. It mandated a radar with a trained backseater. The MiG-25 airframe also got beat up at low-altitude, the MiG-31 has a higher G tolerance due to s stronger airframe mostly because it was needed for lower altitude intercepts. The MiG-25 doesn't compare to a MiG-31, but that doesn't mean you should trash the MiG-25. Its basic capabilities were very good.

Thanks for the answers. GGTharos

AIM-54 could be launched and supported by either STT or TWS. TWS allowed for the multiple shots and AIM-54s were then coded to a target that was in the TWS scan zone. I'm guessing this coding was to ensure the right targeting info went to the right missile and there weren't miscues. Something like this would be done like for example on the leading edge of a radio signal pulse, before the "message", so the AIM-54 sets its code before launch and then filters out all signals except the one its coded to receive. I have no idea if this is how it works but typical avionics work in a similar manner. The whole TWS launch method begs to question a number of scenarios.....such as, could an AIM-54 be launched in a LOAL type and then told by the radar to fly to an area? The AWG-9 wouldn't be tracking anyone, and the AIM-54 radar wouldn't be live, so the shot could be taken silent until say the last 30% of the trip, or until the AIM-54 radar kicks on around 12 miles out, but that's 12 miles LOS, so if the AIm-54 is at 60k ft and dropping on a target at 20k feet, that's 7 miles of vertical and about 8 miles horizontal and closing above Mach 4.........so you need video game reflexes to understand the situation you are in and solve it in the next 7 seconds lol. Also, with coded pulses to the missiles for mid course updates, and with the radars ability to track 24 targets, could a lead F-14 guide all 24 missiles from a flight of 4, with the other 3 keeping their radars off? I know the F-14D had an ability with the APG-71 to double its displayed scan area by joining with another F-14 and sharing information.....of course that's nothing compared to what Link-16 will show you, and the F-14D had that, but I think the antenna sharing info most likely gave you more info than Link-16.

This would be the ELINT part of every country's military. Even if their jets didn't have an RWR that could detect the AWG-9, radio trasmissions would tell them to run when they received the information. In GW1 the jets ran when they picked up the presence of the F-14. There is one instance of Dale Snodgrass' flight actually going in country for A-6 escort(one of the few times F-14s went in country on an A-A mission during that war), were they detected a flight of MiG-29s that were no threat to the A-6s, they could have left their A-6s and gotten easy kills but they remained disciplined and stayed with their bombers and listened as F-15s were vectored in as designed to get the kills-this is no insult to the Air Force or F-15s, their NCTR almost ensured fratricide wouldn't happen, and the F-14 at this point still had avionics that suited blue water, with the radar pings known as bandits. Anyway, I have heard of one instance only in GW1 where an F-14 came back with a missing AIM-54 and a smiling RIO. If there's any truth to this story, the kill may have happened after the bogey crossed into Iran, but the story hasn't been confirmed from anything I've read. Mark Fox's J-7 kill is directly due to the J-7s deliberately avoiding F-14 escort to try to kill the F/A-18s. At the start of the war, Iraq thought it could fight F-152, F-16s, and F/A-18s due to them being constrained by the AIM-7. Iran had the AIM-7E-2 and no AIM-7Fs or AIM-7Ms and it was believed the AIM-7 was a horrible weapon- turns out the AIM-7f and AIM-7M more than fixed the AIM-7s previous horrible reputation and most kills in the war were made with the AIM-7, both at even altitude and low altitude, in head-on, beam and tail chase scenarios.......and one F-15 "killed" a Mercedes that the pilot thought was a low flying helo....... Off the rabbit trail, back on target, Iran feared the AWG-9 because it meant the much improved AIM-54C was heading your way. Many of Iraq's fighters were point defense types that launched at climbed when the enemy got too close to the airfield, so their RWRs would detect the fighter's targeting them as soon as AWACs pointed them there, AWACs routinely detected enemy fighters as soon as they took off, if not as soon as they started rolling down the runway.

The range is the question. AWG-9 tracked at very low power and had a very sensitive receiver for the time, so while you could pick it up, the range at which you did would mean its too late. This is shown in Iran as the majority of claimed AIM-54 kills the targets never knew they were shot at until the missiles hit, but if you went STT on a target with an RWR that could determine who you where, you made them drop bombs and run.

Its possible, but there was so much jamming going on, it would have been difficult to tell, The IRST on the MiGs was good at finding high altitude afterburning targets but would have been useless against cruising strike fighters flying over the desert. From my info, those early gen IRSTs boasted a best scenario range of 8 miles against a hot contact with good contrast(high altitude afterburner), but it seem possible. Also, a long range radar drives a TON of money for RD and maintenance, if your fighters operate independently of GCI, then a long range radar is good, and any intercept errors are the pilots fault. With GCI, you send a mathematically perfect intercept and train the pilot to trust it-getting them to a near no-escape launch point for their weapons. That was the theory anyway, but it remained sound tactics for massive flights of inbound high altitude bombers. Also the AIM-54s(and any long range missile) success at long range is almost completely reliable on the fact that the target is unaware they're being 1) tracked, 2) shot at. The defensive move at range makes it easier to break lock in STT mode, and makes the radar give tracking updates to the missile in TWS, so range and energy are used for course correction. A C-5 wouldn't have a problem dodging every long range missile in the world if the pilot was fed continuous updates as to the shooter and the weapon. So in this case, getting the shooter close to you is better as it negates your maneuvering.

This topic should be an interceptor comparison purely-not commenting on the fighter portion. Interceptors intercept bombers and HVA, not other fighters. Russia knew it couldn't compete with the technology ability of the United States but it didn't rely on pilot decision making and training, rather strict adherence to ground control directions. To this end, the MiG-25 didn't need a long range radar. The fact that its unjammable inside 20nm means it can lock and kill bombers no matter what defensive ECM they have. The allied coalition most assuredly was jamming responsively on the opening night of GW1, a MiG-25 had no problem tracking a flight of F-18s, locking on one, and shooting it down. The MiG-25 also probably holds the record for surviving the most engagements. While the F-14/F-15/F-16 community have had their share of MiG-25 kills, they and the F-4 have also racked up an impressive amount of AIM-7 and AIM-120 shots that missed because they didn't have the energy to close the engagement. WVR, the MiG-25 is a target, at altitude and speed, unless you're head on with him, you most likely wont kill him. Let's not forget an old MiG-25 had no problem killing a predator drone with a face shot.....

That's a bogus story for an exercise unless the intent was specifically to teach your pilots to evade long range shots and give them the confidence they could close to WVR and win. In reality, the scenario goes like something like this. Detection, and tracking in TWS is done beyond the range of your radar and at a low-enough signal strength that doesn't trip your RWR (AWG-9 selling point, that was moot after the Shah fell in Iran). If the tomcat goes for lonest range AIM-54 shot-beyond 50nm, then they'll STT you and most likely trip your RWR. So you perform your first evasive maneuver and break lock.... -in your training scenario the weapon is considered defeated, in every sense of reality, the weapon continues to fly its course and then takes updates from the F-14 on where to go-it has every possibility of relocking and retracking you, unless it calculates it has no possibility of a kill. Meanwhile, AIM-54 no. 2 has been launched at you..... you're closer now, and its harder to break lock, if several F-14s are attacking your flight, and their datalink is functional, you most likely will not break all of the lock tracks on you, and the datalink will ensure tracking info goes to both of the missiles trying to kill you. Now let's say the F-14 is out of AIM-54s, he's still got plenty of gas, plenty of energy, and unless you've dropped your external tanks he's more maneuverable than you......and he's still 30+nm out. -let's say you're God's gift to the F-16 world and your lightning quick reflexes, cloned from Doug Masters and Pete Mitchell, plus the brain of Mitchell Gant(Firefox), allow you to easily dodge the 2 missiles dropping from heaven at Mach 4. -at 20nm the first AIM-7 shot could happen depending on closing speed and altitudes. this forces you break 90 yet again, and offer advantage to one of the F-14s closing on you, as they started bracketing your flight from 50 miles out. - at 15 NM the second AIM-7 shot comes, and if you keep doging these you're still at best fully defensive. Then there's the 2 AIM-9 shots and the gun. So if your Dutch pilots, or any pilots on the planet have the ability and wherewithal to dodge 7 missiles and get a kill, more power to them.......I just highly doubt that possibility for 95% of the planet's fighter pilots. AIM-54 has had aging rocket motor problems, had manufacturing quality control problems, and its advantages neutralized via espionage, and the Navy guarded them too much for the Nuke War that never happened, but it didn't cost $800,000 all up round because of an expensive rocket motor and warhead plus a radar transmitter...

The MiG-25 is impressive as an interceptor any day. It's radar was pretty much unjammable inside of 20 miles, and its missiles were designed to operate in a heavy jamming environment. It has the performance to catch everyone up high and take 4 shots at you. The MiG-31 is refined. It's unknowns are the datalink capabilities and how well these are built into the radar receiver and processor. It built on the F-14s early Link4 system, but I don't know who is better- an F-14D or a MiG-31(latest upgrade) for the air control/intercept mission.

Your info on the F-14 is inaccurate. That's the wing loading from the swing wings only, not the huge tails, not the lifting surface between the engines(has more lift than the wings, and stalls at a lower speed than the wings)