John Barron - MiG Pilot

While the Russians urgently concentrated on creating the new interceptor, American aerial strategy and planning suddenly and radically changed. For four years U-2 reconnaissance planes had flown over the Soviet Union with impunity, collecting enormous masses of military, scientific and economic intelligence through photography and electronics, and mapping the country so that it could be bombarded precisely in the event of war. Soviet fighters strained upward, vainly trying to shoot at the U-2 sailing above 60,000 feet, and each time fell back downward in futility. The Russians also had begun to fire surface-to-air missiles, but their guidance systems were not yet effective enough.

On May 1, 1960, the Russians fired a barrage of missiles at a U-2 piloted by Francis Gary Powers. As Belenko was told and as a reliable source affirmed to the United States, some of the missiles hit and destroyed at least one MiG pursuing Powers. But one also hit and downed the U-2. This celebrated incident, coupled with estimates of the future capabilities of surface-to-air missiles, forced a reappraisal of American strategy. Ultimately the Americans concluded that missiles eventually would be so lethal that Soviet air defenses could not be penetrated by high-altitude bombers. Penetration would have to be effected at very low rather than very high altitudes. Therefore, the United States canceled the B-70 bomber.

However, the Russians, whether because of simple bureaucratic inertia, apprehensions that the Americans might reverse themselves, or for occult reasons of their own, proceeded to build the new interceptor. And their decision compounded the mystery of the MiG-25. For to the West, it did not seem logical that they would resort to enormous cost and effort to solve complex technological problems solely to guard against a threat that had been withdrawn.

Years later, in Japan, the more closely and analytically the Americans and Japanese studied the MiG-25, the more clearly they saw how the Russians had overcome the basic and subsidiary problems at comparatively little cost. They, of course, had saved billions in research and development costs by duplicating the dependable old Tumansky engines and relying on steel rather than on titanium. But on those surfaces subject to intense friction and consequent heat, they had affixed strips of titanium. In areas not subject to friction or heat, they had saved more money and some weight by using plain aluminum — something then unthinkable in the West. The rivet heads, it turned out, protruded only in sections where the airflow would not cause any parasitic drag. The rivets, which seemed to reflect crudity of engineering, actually subtracted nothing from aerodynamic performance while they strengthened the plane.

The Russians had brilliantly engineered new vacuum tubes, elevated outmoded technology to a new apex of excellence. They had integrated a superb automatic pilot and a good on-board computer through digital communications to a ground control system that guided the plane to the exact point of intercept. The pilot had merely to take off, turn on the automatic pilot, and await instructions to fire.

Belenko reported that the MiG-25 radar had been described to him as jamproof, and examination confirmed the report. The radar was the most powerful ever installed in any interceptor or fighter, so powerful that it could “burn through” distractive jamming signals transmitted by attacking bombers. The limited range of the radar was irrelevant, for it was needed only to present ground controllers with a magnified image of the target during the last stages of intercept. The search radars that detected and tracked the target at long range were part of the ground control system.

Belenko also stated that despite the disarray, drunkenness, and mutinous atmosphere rife in his regiment, the MiG-25 had been remarkably free of maintenance problems. The reason was that the plane had been designed with the objective of ease and simplicity of maintenance. A mechanic, with modest skills and training, could quickly check critical systems by inserting plugs from test trucks on the runway. All the components most likely to require maintenance were contained in a huge rack situated behind the cockpit. By turning a hydraulic valve, a mechanic could cause the rack to rise out of the plane, and by turning smaller valves, he could cause any separate component to rise out of the box for repair or maintenance.

While the Americans and Japanese methodically denuded the MiG-25 of its secrets, the Russians, posturing, threatening, begging, kept screaming for return of their precious plane. Finally, on November 12 — sixty-seven days after its loss — they got it back — in pieces. A procession of eight Japanese tractor-trailer trucks with solemn and ceremonious insult delivered the crates to dockside at the port of Hitachi, where the Soviet freighter Taigonos waited with a crew augmented by technicians and KGB officers. The freighter tarried until the Russians inventoried all the parts, making sure that the Dark Forces and their unscrupulous Japanese confederates had kept none. Some 2,000 Japanese police patrolled the dock and many merrily waved as the freighter sailed on November 15.

The Japanese subsequently billed the Soviet Union $40,000 for “damage to ground facilities and transportation charges.” The Russians retaliated with a $10 million bill for “unfriendly handling.” Neither bill, it is believed, was ever paid.

But the Americans and Japanese gladly would have paid many times $10 million for the aircraft Belenko delivered gratis. General Keegan concluded:

The MiG-25 had been perceived as an aircraft of awesome potential calling for rapid development on the most urgent national basis of a true air-superiority fighter by the United States.

Belenko has settled, once and for all, the debate about the MiG-25. He has shown us, much to our surprise, that it was not a fighter, that we have nothing to fear from it as a fighter. But at the same time, the aircraft carries with it many sobering lessons for us.

It reflects genius in resources management and magnificent usage of existing resources and primitive ingenuity. By brilliant marriage of ancient and new technology, the Russians developed in a relatively short time and at relatively little cost an aircraft satisfying performance requirements that could not have been achieved in the West except at exorbitant cost.

The fact that the threat the MiG-25 was designed to meet — a high-altitude bomber — never materialized does not mean that their efforts were wasted. The existence of the MiG-25 and our presumptions about it strongly influenced a national political decision not to overfly the Soviet Union with the SR-71 or with reconnaissance drones. Through the MiG-25, the Russians caused us to deny ourselves for years vast amounts of intelligence which could be gathered by no means other than overflights.

The MiG-25 today remains the best tactical reconnaissance aircraft in the world. It can overfly most areas on the periphery of the Soviet bloc with impunity because we have not in most areas deployed the weapons capable of hitting a plane traveling at its speed and altitude. Sure, the SR-71 would be a better tactical reconnaissance plane if modified for tactical reconnaissance. But to my latest and best knowledge, we have not done that.

In sum, the MiG-25 reminded us that the Russians will go to any ends to meet their military requirements and that despite technological deficiencies they usually do meet them. Were we to apply the lessons apparent in the MiG-25, we could save untold billions of dollars in the development of future weapons systems and develop them far faster than we customarily have.

But Belenko had much more to give than just the MiG-25 and his knowledge of it. Through his eyes the Americans were able to look deeply and searchingly inside the Soviet Air Force and see its strengths and vulnerabilities as never before. In Belenko himself they were able to study the mentality, capacity, and outlook of a Soviet pilot. During the interrogations he increasingly impressed all who worked with him, whether from the military or CIA, by the honesty and the accuracy with which he recounted what he had seen and heard. All that he reported which could be subjected to independent verification proved to be true. And the Americans came to trust him so much that they allowed him to enter and experiment in a combat simulator unknown to most of their own pilots.