India retires Cold War spy MiGs


The Indian Air Force (IAF) has announced it will retire its entire
fleet of MiG 25s, Cold War-era spyplanes, previously shrouded in
secrecy. A spokesman said the last of the IAF's surviving MiG-25s will
be phased out of service in May.


"It will be a nostalgic event and a flypast will be held," Air Vice
Marshal S Mukherjee said. He said the aircraft would be shown at
various installations after they had been retired. The aircraft were
based at an undisclosed location. "It was a darned good machine, but
even today we are not permitted to speak of the daredevilry these
stratospheric planes have been used for," an unnamed MiG 25 pilot was
quoted.


"All I can say is that I have more than once hit Seven Plus (70,000
feet) with them," he said. The MiG 25, which was built in both
reconnaissance and interceptor versions, is the fastest combat aircraft

ever built, apart from the US Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird spyplane. It was

designed in the late 1960s to beat the US Air Force's XB-70, a
supersonic bomber which never entered service. The Pentagon's misplaced

belief that the MiG was a highly-agile dogfighter spurred the
development of the US F-15 and F-16 fighters.


In 1976, a Soviet pilot defected to Japan in a MiG 25. The US
subsequently stripped the aircraft and studied it before returning it
to the USSR. They found the MiG was a heavy but powerful aircraft with
radar capable of burning through protective electronic countermeasures.