Years later, in Japan, the more closely and analytically the Americans and Japanese studied the MiG-25, the more clearly they saw how the Russians had overcome the basic and subsidiary problems at comparatively little cost. They, of course, had saved billions in research and development costs by duplicating the dependable old Tumansky engines and relying on steel rather than on titanium. But on those surfaces subject to intense friction and consequent heat, they had affixed strips of titanium. In areas not subject to friction or heat, they had saved more money and some weight by using plain aluminum — something then unthinkable in the West. The rivet heads, it turned out, protruded only in sections where the airflow would not cause any parasitic drag. The rivets, which seemed to reflect crudity of engineering, actually subtracted nothing from aerodynamic performance while they strengthened the plane.
The Russians had brilliantly engineered new vacuum tubes, elevated outmoded technology to a new apex of excellence. They had integrated a superb automatic pilot and a good on-board computer through digital communications to a ground control system that guided the plane to the exact point of intercept. The pilot had merely to take off, turn on the automatic pilot, and await instructions to fire.
Belenko reported that the MiG-25 radar had been described to him as jamproof, and examination confirmed the report. The radar was the most powerful ever installed in any interceptor or fighter, so powerful that it could «burn through» distractive jamming signals transmitted by attacking bombers. The limited range of the radar was irrelevant, for it was needed only to present ground controllers with a magnified image of the target during the last stages of intercept. The search radars that detected and tracked the target at long range were part of the ground control system.
Belenko also stated that despite the disarray, drunkenness, and mutinous atmosphere rife in his regiment, the MiG-25 had been remarkably free of maintenance problems. The reason was that the plane had been designed with the objective of ease and simplicity of maintenance. A mechanic, with modest skills and training, could quickly check critical systems by inserting plugs from test trucks on the runway. All the components most likely to require maintenance were contained in a huge rack situated behind the cockpit. By turning a hydraulic valve, a mechanic could cause the rack to rise out of the plane, and by turning smaller valves, he could cause any separate component to rise out of the box for repair or maintenance.
While the Americans and Japanese methodically denuded the MiG-25 of its secrets, the Russians, posturing, threatening, begging, kept screaming for return of their precious plane. Finally, on November 12 — sixty-seven days after its loss — they got it back — in pieces. A procession of eight Japanese tractor-trailer trucks with solemn and ceremonious insult delivered the crates to dockside at the port of Hitachi, where the Soviet freighter Taigonos waited with a crew augmented by technicians and KGB officers. The freighter tarried until the Russians inventoried all the parts, making sure that the Dark Forces and their unscrupulous Japanese confederates had kept none. Some 2,000 Japanese police patrolled the dock and many merrily waved as the freighter sailed on November 15.
The Japanese subsequently billed the Soviet Union $40,000 for «damage to ground facilities and transportation charges.» The Russians retaliated with a $10 million bill for «unfriendly handling.» Neither bill, it is believed, was ever paid.
But the Americans and Japanese gladly would have paid many times $10 million for the aircraft Belenko delivered gratis. General Keegan concluded:
The MiG-25 had been perceived as an aircraft of awesome potential calling for rapid development on the most urgent national basis of a true air-superiority fighter by the United States.
Belenko has settled, once and for all, the debate about the MiG-25. He has shown us, much to our surprise, that it was not a fighter, that we have nothing to fear from it as a fighter. But at the same time, the aircraft carries with it many sobering lessons for us.
It reflects genius in resources management and magnificent usage of existing resources and primitive ingenuity. By brilliant marriage of ancient and new technology, the Russians developed in a relatively short time and at relatively little cost an aircraft satisfying performance requirements that could not have been achieved in the West except at exorbitant cost.
The fact that the threat the MiG-25 was designed to meet — a high-altitude bomber — never materialized does not mean that their efforts were wasted. The existence of the MiG-25 and our presumptions about it strongly influenced a national political decision not to overfly the Soviet Union with the SR-71 or with reconnaissance drones. Through the MiG-25, the Russians caused us to deny ourselves for years vast amounts of intelligence which could be gathered by no means other than overflights.
The MiG-25 today remains the best tactical reconnaissance aircraft in the world. It can overfly most areas on the periphery of the Soviet bloc with impunity because we have not in most areas deployed the weapons capable of hitting a plane traveling at its speed and altitude. Sure, the SR-71 would be a better tactical reconnaissance plane if modified for tactical reconnaissance. But to my latest and best knowledge, we have not done that.
In sum, the MiG-25 reminded us that the Russians will go to any ends to meet their military requirements and that despite technological deficiencies they usually do meet them. Were we to apply the lessons apparent in the MiG-25, we could save untold billions of dollars in the development of future weapons systems and develop them far faster than we customarily have.
But Belenko had much more to give than just the MiG-25 and his knowledge of it. Through his eyes the Americans were able to look deeply and searchingly inside the Soviet Air Force and see its strengths and vulnerabilities as never before. In Belenko himself they were able to study the mentality, capacity, and outlook of a Soviet pilot. During the interrogations he increasingly impressed all who worked with him, whether from the military or CIA, by the honesty and the accuracy with which he recounted what he had seen and heard. All that he reported which could be subjected to independent verification proved to be true. And the Americans came to trust him so much that they allowed him to enter and experiment in a combat simulator unknown to most of their own pilots.
It was a space-age creation born of incredible U.S. advances in computer and microcircuitry technology. Three fighter cockpits each were encased in a huge sphere onto whose interior cameras projected startlingly realistic images of sky, earth, horizon, and moving clouds. The images combined with a pressure suit to duplicate the sensations and stresses of flight with such verisimilitude that on occasion experienced pilots had become airsick. Each cockpit could be programmed to emulate the characteristics and performance of a given plane in a given situation.
Accompanied by Gregg, Belenko was told that first he would «fly» a MiG-17. He put on the G-suit, strapped himself into the cockpit, and the sphere closed. Suddenly he was transported not only into the skies but back to the Soviet Union. The stick and controls moved; the whole cockpit seemed to tilt and turn just as the MiG-17s he had long flown in the Caucasus had. Now he saw two other MiG-17s, «flown» by American pilots in the other cockpits, joining him in formation. I cannot believe it! It is as if I have just taken off from Armavir!
Successively the simulator was reprogrammed so that Belenko experienced flight in a MiG-21, a MiG-23, and finally his own MiG-25. He had astonished the Americans by the exactitude of Soviet knowledge of the F-4, F-14, F-15, and F-16. Now he realized that they already possessed equal knowledge of all the Soviet aircraft — except the MiG-25. The feel and performance of the MiG-25 they simulated were remarkably close to reality, but they had programmed it as if it could fly at Mach 3.2.