Posted on 08/06/2003 12:35:40 PM PDT by HighRoadToChina
Iraqi 'Mach 3' MiG Buried in Sand Charles R. Smith Wednesday August 6, 2003
NewsMax.com has obtained exclusive photos of a buried Iraqi jet fighter being recovered by U.S. Air Force troops. The Iraqi jet, an advanced Russian MiG-25 Foxbat, was found buried in the sands after an informant tipped off U.S. troops. Click here to see the MiG buried in the Iraqi desert.
The MiG was dug out of a massive sand dune near the Al Taqqadum airfield by U.S. Air Force recovery teams. The MiG was reportedly one of over two-dozen Iraqi jets buried in the sands, like hidden treasure, waiting to be recovered at a later date.
Contrary to what some in the major media have reported, not all the jets found were from the Gulf War era.
The Russian made MiG-25 Foxbat recovered by U.S. Army troops in the pictures, is an advanced reconnaissance version never before seen in the west and is equipped with sophisticated electronics warfare devices.
U.S. Air Force recovery teams had to use large earth moving equipment to uncover the MiG which is over 70 feet long and weights nearly 25 tons.
Click here to see troops digging the MiG out of its hole.
Click here to see troops towing the jet away.
All photos courtesy of MSGT T. Collins, USAF
The Foxbat is known to be one of Iraq's top jet fighters. The advanced electronic reconnaissance version found by the U.S. Air Force is currently in service with the Russian air force. The MiG is capable of flying at speeds of over 2,000 miles an hour or three times the speed of sound, and at altitudes of over 75,000 feet.
The recovery of the advanced MiG fighter is considered to be an intelligence coup by the U.S. Air Force. The Foxbat may also be equipped with advanced Russian and French made electronics that were sold to Iraq during the 1990s in violation of a U.N. ban on arms sales to Baghdad.
The buried aircraft at Al Taqqadum were covered in camouflage netting, sealed and in many cases had their wings removed, before being buried over ten feet underneath the Iraqi desert.
X MARKS THE SPOT
The discovery of the buried Iraqi jet fighters illustrates the problem faced by U.S. inspection teams searching Iraq for weapons of mass destruction. Iraq is larger in size than California and the massive deserts south and west of Baghdad were used by Saddam Hussein to hide weapons during the first Gulf war.
U.S. intelligence sources have already uncovered several mass grave burial sites in the open deserts with an estimated 10,000 dead hidden there. In addition, Iraq previously hid SCUD missiles, chemical weapons and biological warheads by burying them under the desert sands. U.N. inspection teams found the weapons in the early 1990s after detailed information of the exact locations was obtained.
Top U.S. weapons inspector Dr. David Kay is known to favor human intelligence as the primary means to find Iraq's hidden treasure trove of weapons and secrets.
While there are rumors of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons being shipped to nearby Syria, the weapons may very well still remain inside Iraq buried under the vast desert wastelands.
Some critics of the Bush administration have claimed that the inability of U.S. forces to uncover weapons of mass destruction is proof that the President misled the nation into the war with Iraq. However, in recent days the critics have fallen silent as word quietly leaked from Iraq that major discoveries have already been made and are now being documented completely. Bush administration officials are keeping any such discoveries secret for the moment.
He pushed the plane as far as it would go on the gas he had, and used his last bit to climb for altitude. When he flamed out, he glided to land in Japan. Since the MiG-25 glides like a brick, this took HUGE, BRASS ones. Then, he followed up with a dead-stick landing at the Air Force Base (whose name escapes me), in bad weather.
The epilogue of the story was, the Russians demanded the return of their airplane. We complied, after stripping it down to individual BOLTS and packaging each one, labeling them, and sending them back. It took over a year...
Simple...it cost too much to manufacture. It WAS a beauty, though.
Which just MAY confirm suspicions as to why Russia and France were so against us taking down the Iraqi gubmint.
Excellent point!
I don't know weather that's true or not, but I'd like to share a drink or two with him and find out. Guys like that are priceless.
In a way, he hastened the downfall of the Soviet Union. Up to then, we'd thought that they were even with us in technology...he showed us they were in fact far behind, and were NOT the boogeymen we'd thought they were, militarily.
It was, for a lot of people. He was on a routine training flight, plan in mind, and simply broke off from his wingman. He dove down low and punched burners, and did a Gone In Sixty Seconds-style run southeast. He avoided all attempts they made to track him and shoot him down, too.
I get an adrenaline rush just thinking about it.
AMERICA! It's not an ethnicity, it's a SPIRIT, and he surely was an American in that!
I agree. The book was really good though, and Craig Thomas, the author, actually wrote a sequel, Firefox Down, which was good too. It begins EXACTLY at the moment the first one ended. Gant had just killed the second Firefox, when he notices that his fuel is almost gone. Turns out his tanks were punctured by cannon fire, and he makes an emergency landing on a frozen lake in Finland. Good guys are trying to rescue the now-captured Gant and salvage the plane (which sank) before the Finns turn it over to the Russians. Not a bad read, IIRC.
The book was called "Mig Pilot", written in collaboration
with an American writer.
Maybe not quite, but pretty close. Mach 2.83 is the official top speed, based on airframe considerations, but it can and has exceeded Mach 3. If you don't mind an engine change out after every flight that is. That's what Victor Belenko said anyway. He flew a Mig-25(original fighter varient) to Japan in September of 1976.
Yes, that was the other problem, I think it could do bursts of Mach 3 and the engines would be okay, but sustained at 2.8+ and engines don't work so good after that.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.