For us in the non-Soviet WP airforces the MiG-25 was a "nightmare".Iwan Bogels wrote:To me the MiG-25 had always been the ultimate "Red Star Aircraft" during the cold war.
Russians sent MiG-25s with high-speed, at high altitude as targets - simulate SR-71 - to check our air-defence.
Most of the times to catch it - it was mission impossible.
With MiG-21, absolutely no chance.
In HuAF we had only 1! "efficient" theoretical head-on shot with MiG-23MF, SAM guys had hard times too...
I red many "dream-stories" of Foxbat intercepts over WP countries...I had doubts always
Israelis could not catch the "egyptian" MiG-25s too...
I talk about the Foxbat with AWACS guys in mid 90s, they told - they had really hot-seats in the "what-if with MiG-25" scenarios