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The reason it didn't overfly was political. The Gary Powers incident being the main initiator of that policy. It overflew Vietnam and had loads of missiles shot
by zip1234 5y ago
The reason it didn't overfly was political. The Gary Powers incident being the main initiator of that policy. It overflew Vietnam and had loads of missiles shot at it by Soviet SAMs with Soviet SAM operators. Mainly it flew too fast and too high for those to hit it.
- sudosysgen 5y agoAs far as I'm aware, the MiG-25 is not a surface-to-air missile. There were no MiG-25s in Vietnam either. The SR-71 was fast enough to avoid surface-to-air missiles, but it was much too slow to avoid the air-to-air missiles carried by a MiG-25.
- zip1234 5y agoOn paper, yes, it would seem a MiG-25 would work against an SR-71, but those are max characteristics and not sustained performance. Mach 3.2 was best case while testing. Real world speed is more like Mach 2.5, especially when carrying missiles. The AA-6 was huge and massive drag on performance. Further, the AA-6 had very limited targeting and engagement electronics, which meant that the MiG-25 was not very effective against the SR-71.
- sys_64738 5y agoThis was my understanding too as they would only fly along the international border but could use side look down radar to peer deep inside the country. But once satellite tech was good enough then the RS-71 became superfluous and too expensive ($300m per year per RS-71) to keep flying.