MiG Pilot: the Final Escape of Lt. Belenko

The Russians first flew a MiG-25 prototype in 1964 and began assembly-line production in the late 1960s. After the commanding general of the Soviet Air Defense Command was killed in a MiG-25 crash in 1969, they halted production for about a year but resumed it in 1970 or 1971. Periodically they modified the aircraft, eliminated flaws, and upgraded capabilities. Far from considering the plane obsolete or relegating it to a reconnaissance role, the Russians in 1976 regarded the MiG-25 as their best high-altitude interceptor. And MiG-25s along with MiG-23s were replacing all other aircraft assigned to the Air Defense Command (MiG-17s, MiG-19s, SU-9s, SU-15s, and YAK-28s).

The MiG-25 Belenko landed in Hakodate had rolled out of the factory in February 1976, and the date of manufacture could be deciphered from the serial number stamped on the fuselage. The plane thus was one of the latest models and embodied the highest technology then in production. It was the plane on which the Russians intended to rely as a mainstay of their air defenses for years to come.

Meanwhile, dozens of American aeronautical, electronic, and metallurgical experts from the United States and elsewhere joined the Japanese in scientific exploration of the plane itself. The initial, critical task was to ferret out the explosive charges planted to destroy sensitive parts of the plane the Russians were determined no foreigner should ever see — the radar, fire control system, electronic countermeasures, computer, automatic pilot. With difficulty, the Americans located and removed the explosives — «something of a cross between a cherry bomb and a stick of dynamite.» Then the Japanese and Americans painstakingly removed the wings, horizontal tail fins, afterburners, and pylons and loaded them, together with the fuselage, into a giant U.S. Air Force Galaxy C-5A cargo plane. Some of the Japanese technicians lettered and strung on the fuselage a large banner saying, «Sayonara, people of Hakodate. Sorry for the trouble.»

Soviet fighters still prowled the skies around Hakodate, and fearful that they might interfere, the Japanese cloaked the C-5A within a formation of missile-firing F-104s and F-4s while it transported the MiG to Hyakuri Air Base sixty miles north of Tokyo on September 25. There, in a large hangar guarded by Japanese soldiers, the real unwrapping of the «present for the Dark Forces» began. Some of the Americans had devoted much of their careers to dissecting captured or stolen Soviet equipment, and they, along with their Japanese colleagues, approached the hangar much in the spirit of eager archaeologists allowed temporary entry into a forbidden tomb full of rare and glittering riches which might be surveyed but not kept. They had to analyze swiftly and urgently, yet carefully and thoroughly, so the labor was divided among teams which focused day and night upon separate sections or components.

As the entire MiG was disassembled and the engines, radar, computer, automatic pilot, fire control, electronic countermeasure, hydraulic, communications, and other systems were put on blocks and stands for mechanical, electronic, metallurgical, and photographic analysis, the specialists experienced a succession of surprises and shocks.

My God! Look what this thing is made of! Why, the dumb bastards don't have transistors; they're still using vacuum tubes! These engines are monsters! Maybe the Sovs have a separate refinery for each plane! Jesus! See these rivet heads sticking out, and look at that welding!

They did it by hand! Hell, the pilot can't see a thing unless it's practically in front of him! This contraption isn't an airplane; it's a rocket! Hey, see what they've done here! How clever! They were able to use aluminum! Why didn't we ever think of that? How ingenious! It's brilliant!

The data Belenko supplied in response to the first quick queries also seemed surprising and, at first, contradictory.

What is the maximum speed of the MiG-25?

You cannot safely exceed Mach 2.8, but actually we were forbidden to exceed Mach 2.5. You see, at high speeds the engines have a very strong tendency to accelerate out of control, and if they go above Mach 2.8, they will overheat and burn up.

But we have tracked the MiG-25 at Mach 3.2.

Yes, and every time it has flown that fast the engines have been completely ruined and had to be replaced and the pilot was lucky to land in one piece. (That fitted with intelligence the Americans had. They knew that the MiG-25 clocked over Israel at Mach 3.2 in 1973 had landed back in Egypt with its engines totally wrecked. They did not understand that the wreckage was inevitable rather than a freakish occurrence.)

What is your combat radius?

At best, 300 kilometers [186 miles].

You're joking!

I am not. If you use afterburners and maneuver for intercept, you can stay up between twenty-two and twenty-seven minutes at the most. Make one pass, and that's it.

We thought the range was 2,000 kilometers [1,240 miles].