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Interesting interview! I remember reading the reaction of an East German couple after they'd managed to get across the wall. They went to an upscale West German store and were overwhelmed by 300 types of bread! It confused them instead of gratifying them, which I thought was rather funny/sad.

I'd love to hear an elaboration on the MIG-25 - how was it better and worse?

I read an interesting analysis of Soviet weapons some years back which said that they were designed to be difficult, even painful, to use because then they could crank them out by the million on the cheap. American weapons, by contrast, were said to be comfortable, elegantly designed and very high quality, but some of the gizmos had trouble working, and we couldn't build enough of them to be effective.

I must say that recent wars seem to have vindicated the US approach. The gizmos worked a lot better than I'd heard they would, and we were able to vanquish our enemy with relative ease. I must say that I'm impressed by the work of our defense contractors nowadays. They seem to have done the job, despite the mid-80s skepticism.

D

The biggest difference between us and them is we actually TRAIN !

Warsaw Pact pilots had very few hours in their planes compared to their NATO counterparts.
Also even in ground warfare our training wasn't 'scripted' all Warsaw Pact exercises were.

Now look at non-Western & non Warsaw Pact militaries aka 3rd Word. These militaries have only a 'theoretical' familiarity with their weapons. All modern technically sophisticated weapons in the hand of a 3rd World (even in many cases 2nd World !) military is days within turning into a piece of expensive junk.

I'd love to hear an elaboration on the MIG-25 - how was it better and worse?

- Short range
- Used lots of vacuum tubes (which while heavier/bulkier, could hold up to electronic interference - especially nearby nukes, and could handle bad weather and were easier to replace for the ground crews)
- The engines were too fast for their own good - the MiG-25 that did the mach 3.2 or 3.3 run over Israel in the early '70s nearly came apart - the engines were totalled after it was over, from the stress.
- The airframe could not handle some of the stresses of a serious dogfight (an F-4 could out-manuever it!).
-It was steel, not titanium like was thought (and the thing was incredibly heavy - which limited the range and maneuverability).

Also, it was hand-welded. It was however, fairly reliable, rugged, and easy to maintain if you kept it within parameters, and it had one helluva radar - could easily kill small animals (and probably humans) along the runway if you turned it on while taxiing, and would go right through our best signal jamming at the time.

I heard somewhere it could hit 100,000 feet in under 4 minutes, but in a one-on-one situation, just about all of the NATO fighters could defeat it (in all fairness, it was really built to scramble and go after high-altitude Mach 3 bombers like the XB-70).

Belenko was a real character and one of the gutsiest people I know of - he planned it for years, and when he was finally in a position to defect, the man loaded his cockpit with technical manuals and guides to the MiG-25 and some of the other Soviet fighters. The US gave him a nice pension/trust fund.

He reminds me of the Cubans that take old Chevy trucks and cars and turn them into boats and literally drive them across the ocean to the US (even if it is a short stretch, it's still driving a CAR in the OCEAN). It's a shame we continue to turn those types back - they probably would appreciate freedom more than many Americans born here.