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| MiG-31 Foxhound |
International Military - MiG-31 Foxhaund became one of the legendary fighter jets of its time. Even though it is currently studded with the latest fighter jets, its name still deserves to be echoed. Not without reason, because there are many 'magical' things that exist in this jet.
As is known, now the stealth feature is something that is considered advanced. The MiG-31 doesn't have that feature. However, who would have thought that the speed could actually reach Mach 3?
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Quoted from 19fortyfive.com, the Mig-31 was designed from the MiG-25 "Foxbat" interceptor. Equipped with two D-30F6 engines, the two-seater MiG-31 can reach an impressive maximum speed of Mach 3 and an altitude of between 65,000 and 67,500 feet.
It has an excellent range of 1,900 miles on takeoff and 3,400 miles on one aerial refueling. This jet is also capable of operating in all weather conditions, namely during the day or night.
The fighter can also network with other aircraft in its sorties to share real-time information. Additionally, the Foxhound entered service as the first Soviet fighter to have genuine look-down/shoot-down capability, thanks to its phased array radar. It was also the first fighter of its kind to maintain navigation at supersonic speeds.
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Its weapons capabilities include the standard Gsh-6-23, 23mm cannon, as well as the ability to use long-range R-37 air-to-air missiles and R-77 short-range missiles. Active radar guidance on this munition provides a firing range of up to 400 km to the former and 110 km to the latter, with the R-37 carrying a large 61 kg warhead.
The Zaslon-M radar helps the Foxhound fire at such a distance, detecting large and medium-sized aircraft more than 400 kilometers away. The MiG-K Foxhound variant was recently equipped with the Kh-47M2 "Kinzhal" hypersonic tactical ballistic missile.
These munitions can reliably hit a number of ground and surface targets, remain accurate at distances of up to 2,000 kilometers and travel at speeds of Mach-10. The original Foxhound's first test flight was in September 1975.
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It officially entered service with the Russian air force in 1981. Since then, 519 have been produced, with 370 remaining with the Russian air force, while 30 are in service with the Kazakh air force. Most of the others remain in the post-Soviet world, although details of their whereabouts are scant.
Quoted from The Aviation Geek Club, there is one event that makes this jet memorable. It is known, the MiG-31 had faced off with the SR-71, which is the fastest aircraft in the world. It is based on Yeilding talking about the October 6, 1986 intercept in Paul F Crickmore's book.
“The Barents mission was very memorable because we met the Soviet MiG-31. Since most of the details of the Blackbird flight were classified at that time, I did not make any records of the encounter, so I cannot verify the date of the encounter.
On that impressive MiG-31 rendezvous mission, there we were, 71,000 feet, starting our Mach 3.0 reconnaissance path, heading east just beyond the territorial waters of Russia's Murmansk region coastline.