Funny, that didn’t stop the SR-71 from flying over Libya, which had the SA-5 and the MiG-25P.

Funny the US lost the Vietnam war and the US is a super power! 😉
Funny Germany had V-2s and Me-262 and even with that lost WWII.
Funny the USSR had Tu-22M and lost the Soviet-Afghan war

Consider that having a weapon does not guarantee you victory or success, first no MiG-25 was shot down over Libya even they had the much vaunted AIM-54 and the F-14, second it does not mean the Libyans operated well their MiG-25s or the MiG-25s were in the range to intercept the SR-71s.

are you trying to imply that in 1986 Libya equalled the Former Soviet Union air defences? and you know perfectly the answer is not, you can not compare the better trained Russian personal to the Libyans simply because Russia has educated more the Russian population and the Russians know better the Russian equipment than their customers.

besides Russia has more equipment and more technology available than a developing nation like Libya, a single weapon won`t give you superiority you have to have a whole weapons system integrated by several radar stations, AWACS, SAMs, aircraft and Satellite survaillance besides excellent training

Gary Powers was shot down conducting the last US U-2 overflight of the USSR in 1960. That’d be the last US overflight of Russia. Next.

See the A-12 flew missions over North Korea and North Vietnam why? because like i said you before when ever the risk of being shot down are low they would send the Sr-71.

In the first three months of 1968, the Oxcart operation was alerted fifteen times and flew six missions. Four of these were over North Vietnam and two over North Korea. The first mission over North Korea on January 26, 1968, occurred during a tense period, only three days after the Communist seizure of the US Navy ship Pueblo. Black Shield aimed to discover whether the North Koreans were preparing any large-scale hostile move on the heels of this incident. Chinese tracking of the flight was apparent, but no missiles were fired at the plane.

http://www.afa.org/magazine/Jan1995/0195shield.asp
It is not politics but the military capabilities the enemy has, can they shot down the Sr-71? can the the counter attack? those are the real reasons, the Russians had enough technology to shot down US aircraft and by the 1980s that capability was totally assure.

The Sukhoi T-4 only flew 9 times. The first five times they didn’t even retract the undercarriage.The fastest it flew was Mach=1.3. It was designed to fly for 6,000km nonstop But considering the previous record of Soviet supersonic aircraft such as the MiG-25 and Tu-144 ‘Concordskii’ I’d say it would have ran out of gas long before that. And don’t mention in-flight refueling, considering the Soviets were always short of tankers, even for long range aviation. I’m surprised that this aircraft reached prototype, considering that the Americans cancelled their own B-70 ten years earlier – when they realized that the idea of a mach 3 strategic bomber was completely untenable in the face of modern air defences.

Mind you it’s one of the most impressive aircraft ever to fly and a true Russian descendent to Igor Sikorskii’s 4 engined bomber of 1913, the ‘Ilya Muromets’

I do not think the T-4 was doomed technically, the aircraft like other US supersonic projects were excellent in paper and excelent once they were built, however fast aircraft are not agile, if you check the only fourth generation aircrft that is a fast jet is the MiG-31, the F-15 is more an agile aircraft with good climb rate and acceleration, in fact the MiG-31M had not even a gun they deleted becasue they knew a fast MiG-31 is not a good dogfighter but only and excellent long range interceptor.

Other fighters like the F-16 or Su-27 are not as fast as even the F-15 but these are more agile and the Eurofighter and Rafale are not as fast even as the Su-27 or MiG-29.

Speed is good but agility is better and good missiles even best both and that tendency has been followed since the MiG-29 and F-16 agility and smart missiles, not fast jets that can hardly manoeuvre.

source of the pictures http://www.ldomino.ru/russia/mikoyan/mig/25/rbs/mig25rbs.htm

Eisenhower did recognise the implications of the missions over the Soviet Union. He himself banned certain overflights in an effort to keep relations with the Soviets. It was Eisenhower that proposed in 1955 that the United States and Soviet Union conduct surveillance overflights of each other’s territory to reassure each country that the other was not preparing to attack.

Archived material indicating that Gary Powers mission was to be the last overflight of the Soviet Union:

“CIA, Situation Estimate for Project CHALICE – Fiscal Years 1961 and 1962, March 14, 1960. Top Secret, 15 pp.
Source: National Archives, CIA 2000 Release”

Despite Eisenhower’s concerns about the consequences of a loss of a U-2 over the Soviet Union, he did approve further missions after his initial, July 1956, order to stop the overflights. During a 23-day period in August 1957, U-2s conducted Operation SOFT TOUCH – seven overflights of the Soviet Union and two of the People’s Republic of China. This activity, particularly with regard to the Soviet Union was atypical. Thus, Francis Gary Powers May 1, 1960 overflight would be 24th and last of Soviet territory. This situation estimate, prepared a little less than two months before the shootdown, was intended to provide “guidance for the planning and conduct of project operations during the FY1961-62 time period.” In addition, it provides a concise history of the program and an assessment of the intelligence desired from future U-2 flights.”

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB54/st09.pdf

http://media.nara.gov/media/images/9/27/09-2625a.gif

I do not believe that explanation niether your what is important for the supporters of the invulnerable Super Sr-71 is it can not be shot, that is a total lie, what the americans learnt when Gary Powers was shot down is the USSR was capable technologically speaking to shot down US aircraft and the risks involved into these over flights were nuclear war, would have they over flown the USSR would they have known the SR-71 was invulnerable to interception? the answer is yes

Did they tease the Soviet defences the answer is yes, did they intrude a few kilometers into soviet air space? the answer is yes, what are you try to cover is the fact over flights are not forbidden, they will do over flights when ever the enemy or hostile nation is uncapable of shooting down the SR-71 and the risks involved are certainly low such as a UN complaign.

You never learn it, when you mix max G of target, max speed of a target and max height of a target at the same time.
The Russian claimed that the R-33 could kill a target flying at supersonic speeds up to 4 Gs. Excactly that was demonstrated against a MiG-25, what can pull 4,5 Gs at supersonic speed and heights above 38000 feet.
Nothing more and nothing less.
At >70000 feet lift is an issue when it comes to bank angle (related to G) and not structural strength. By the way the same problem for the R-33 and any other AAM. But too much physics again?!
1,3 Gs gives a bank angle of 40°
2 Gs of 60°
3 Gs of 71°
4 Gs of 76°

Yeah sens

so can you explain me why air to air missiles experience up to 40Gs? that is not related to bank angle but to acceleration and inertia, if they give you a basic way to calculate G load is to a related speed not to all speeds, G is a measure of inertia and centrifugal force, speed will be related to inertia and Gravity is related to inertia.

Inertia is a very powerful force, modern aircraft and engines can not pull so many Gs and do excesively tight turns because inertia keeps you always in the same path direction, inertia has basicly two forces interacting two vectors and as quantum mechanics explains energy cannot disappear has to be emitted and transmitted but also has to have mass so you have inertia as a result because as a black hole can compress a star in a tea spoon and bent light; G forces do the same to your vascular system in relatively insignificant 10Gs, to fight inertia you need a balance in the centrifugal force and centripetal force and excess of inertia or G forces are a product of speed and change of direction the bank angle gives you different G forces at different speeds .

The MiG-25 has a limited power supply to fight inertia and doing a tight turn at such high speeds will increase inertia to a level the structural integrity will be put to a test and can result in damage, centrifugal force can black you out because the human as an aircraft has his or her structural integrity changed when inertia is applied to the vascular system.

DEFENSE AGAINST ICBMS.

A typical intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) will have a range of 8000-10,000 km and a speed of around 7 km/s. Minimum propulsion for a given range is achieved with a reentry angle closer to 22 deg than to 45 deg because the range is not small compared with the radius of the Earth. Of course, the atmosphere of depth 10 tons per square meter exerts a substantial drag on the ballistic missile as it rises, so that a practical design does not achieve intercontinental speed within the dense atmosphere; this is accomplished by limiting the thrust and hence the acceleration of the missile. This also limits the “dynamic pressure” and the skin heating on ascent. But too low an acceleration implies excessive “gravity loss”, since it is only the excess of vertical component of thrust over the force of gravity that actually results in acceleration of the missile. Even so, a typical large liquid-fueled missile may have a thrust of 1.3 times its gross weight, so that initially only 0.3/1.3 of the thrust accelerates the missile just after liftoff.

The kinetic energy of the RV, which is a good fraction of the total energy of the propellant of the entire ICBM, must be dissipated on reentry. ICBM warheads must be protected by a reentry vehicle (RV) against the heat and deceleration of the atmosphere. A typical peak deceleration is on the order of 60 g. However, only a small fraction of this energy need be absorbed by the material of the RV– the rest being carried off by the wake of the reentry. Although initial ICBM RVs used a heat-sink approach, this was soon superseded by a much lighter protection system that uses ablative material that gradually sacrifices its heated surface layer and erodes in a controlled fashion on reentry. The RV shape approximates a sharp cone with a small nose radius.

http://www.fas.org/rlg/garwin-aps.htm

A typical peak deceleration is on the order of 60 g.

An object traveling in a circle behaves as if it is experiencing an outward force. This force, known as the centrifugal force, depends on the mass of the object, the speed of rotation, and the distance from the center. The more massive the object, the greater the force; the greater the speed of the object, the greater the force; and the greater the distance from the center, the greater the force.

http://phun.physics.virginia.edu/topics/centrifugal.html

Despite the success of General Relativity in depicting gravity, inertia–an equivalent force–continues to defy explanation.
http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001287/

Jupiter IRBM Specifications

Length: 60 ft (18.3 m)
Diameter: 8 ft 9 in (2.67 m)
Total Fueled Weight: 108,804 lb (49,353 kg)
Empty Weight: 13,715 lb (6,221 kg)
Oxygen (LOX) Weight: 68,760 lb (31,189 kg)
RP-1 (kerosene) Weight: 30,415 lb (13,796 kg)
Thrust: 150,000 lbf (667 kN)
Engine: Rocketdyne LR70-NA (Model S-3D)
ISP: 247.5 s (2.43 kN·s/kg)
Burning time: 157.8 s
Propellant consumption rate: 627.7 lb/s (284.7 kg/s)
Range: 1,500 mi (2,410 km)
Flight time: 1,016.9 s
Cutoff velocity: 8,984 mph (14,458 km/h) – Mach 13.04
Reentry velocity: 10,645 mph (17,131 km/h) – Mach 15.45
Acceleration: 13.69 g (134 m/s²)
Peak deceleration: 44.0 g (431 m/s²)
Peak altitude: 390 mi (628 km)
CEP 4,925 ft (1,500 m)
Warhead: 1.45 Mt Thermonuclear W-49 – 1,650 lb (750 kg)
Fusing: Proximity and Impact
source http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Jupiter_(missile)

Mach 3.5? The fastest I’ve seen is Mach 3.3x teritory for the SR-71, and about 3.29 for the A-12. That particular flight of the A-12 was almost fatal for the plane and the pilot, since the instruments were showing M3.16, but they later discovered that instruments were faulty. Almost all of the hydraulic fluid evaporated, circuits were fried and wires had to be replaced.
Usually the SR-71 cruises at M3.2, and M3.3 is possible if the outside air temperature is low enough.

I have read those were tests not operational flights, the average speed for the SR-71 indeed seems to be mach 3.2 but we can not discard it can fly faster at least for few minutes, up to what i have read it only can fly a sustained Mach 3.4 Mach 3.5 with minor modifications but those were results said by Lockheed and NASA during tests.

Operationally the SR-71 has a max speed of Mach 3.2 at 80000 feet and it rarely flew faster than Mach 3.5

Please read slowly and carefully!. A SR-71 will never go into an turning fight. Just a small shift in direction is enough to foil the computed hit-point for the R-33.
A MiG-25/MiG-31 has no chance to chase a SR-71. Those are unable to reach a similar speed and height at the same time.
The best they can hope for is to reach a single fire-opportunity. But the SR-71 crew and its EW-suit may have done all to foil that.
When it was an idiotic strait line race (like a dragster race) and the SR-71 will line-up close by and do nothing to foil the firing sequenz, the R-33 will win always, but reality is much different.
At speeds above Mach 3 nothing will turn really, so none will try that at all.
The MiG-25R over Israel (Haifa) did a climb-turn at Mach 2,35 of over 50 km diameter, when accellerating back to Mach 2,5. That was not to avoid interceptors, but to reverse direction for flight home.

Sens

You forget very easily the R-33 parameters, first all missiles will do turns, they are designed to maneouvre, the R-33 can kill targets pulling up to 4Gs, if you consider that a Blackbird is a big aircraft and quit heavy you will know it won`t pull many Gs, the MiG-25 for example can not pull more than 4Gs; the MiG-31 only pulls 5Gs, you can not expect the blackbird to pull higher Gs than the Mig-25 or MiG-31 first because the aircraft can not fight inertia at Mach 3.5 and second because it is rated very likely at very low Gs like the MiG-25 or even less.

In that sense the R-33 can hit the Blackbird because the SR-71 won`t pull real expectacular turns, in reality the black bird has a very slow angular velocity.

You are thinking the Sr-71 EW measures will be effective all the time, the reason the SR-71 flies at Mach 3.5 was becasue in very brief periods of time it can dash at high speed but later it has to return to Mach 3.2 and that is the real operational speed it has and at high altitude.
Mach 3.5 was an speed used in tests by NASA and Lockheed but if the aircraft has not been modified it has to do only brief incursions into Mach 3.5
The real operational speed for the SR-71 is Mach 3.2 or 3400km/h at 24km of altitude the MiG-31 or MiG-25 also operationally have a speed of mach 2.83 or 3000 km/h at 18km of altitude

Of course both aircraft can fly faster already has been proven the MiG-25 flew at Mach 3.2 but like the SR-71 can not keep that speed for long unless they want to damage the aircraft.

The R-40 has also IR versions and despite the missile flies much more slower and has a shorter range than the R-33 still if fired at relatively short distance can kill the Blackbird.

For an SR-71 intruding into Russian airspace is a big gambling it is not a safe enterprise, there are very high risks involved trying to intrude the Russian airspace.

I am not saying the MiG-25 is an agile machine but what i am saying is since the MiG-25 was highly produced (close to 1200 MiG-25 were built) and the MiG-31 was mass produced (the MiG-31 was less produced than the MiG-25s only 500 were built) still you can position some MiG-25s at different points of air space and that is the reason four MiG-31 can sweep 600km of air space and direct MiG-25s and other fighters because you will have several fighters and interceptors along the very predictable scape route the SR-71 will take and since the SR-71 can not turn in a dime several russian interceptor can predict where to be positioned and where to direct the fighters to fire the R-33 and R-40 at the best distance to ensure a kill

Above 38000 feet the speed of sound stick to ~1070 km/h.
3,2*1070= 3424 km/h. The R-33 is fired at 2,8*1070=2996 km/h
The difference speed between SR-71 and MiG-25/31 is around 430 km/h in a position behind and below. The R-33 has a very small performance window to close that gaps under optimum conditions.
The Russian claim do not even show, that both corner values of 91000 feet and 3700 km/h could be reached at the same time!!!
None is surprised to learn, that you claim the data which suit your opinion, but ignore or question those, what will not.
The Chinese rejected the offer for MiG-31 for over a decade. One of very few countries, where interceptors like MiG-31 would have made any operational sense.

Sens

The R-33 has a max speed of Mach 4.5, you might think the R-33 has values fixed the missile has been designed to kill in the best conditions targets between the envelope of 60m to 28km and from low speeds to 3700km and it has a max range of 120km, see that these are max values that easily will represent the max capabilities in range and speed, what you are thinking is probably there is something wrong, it can not kill it but see that the R-33 is 1000km/h faster than the SR-71 and a Mach faster than the SR-71, the reason why they say a max speed of 3700km/h is because they are calculating the target will have a difference in distance and speed with respect the R-33 carring aircraft and in order to have a max range of 120km and kill the target they calculated that 3700km is the max speed the target can have at the average firing distance for the R-33, now you are not calculating another fact today`s MiG-31 carry R-37s and these are even more lethal, but of course we are talking about the cold war years.

Now the most important factor is not speed but acceleration see that if you fire the R-33 from a relatively short distance you will kill the SR-71 for sure for example if the Sr-71 is 300 meters ahead of the of the MiG-31, the MiG-31 will kill in matters of seconds the SR-71 with an R-33 even if the SR-71 s flying at Mach 3.5 because the R-33 is 300 m/s faster than the SR-71, the main question is how many seconds the R-33 will take to reach the SR-71 and in how many secons it will accelerate from the launching speed to Mach 4.5, so that will give you the minimal firing distance, however see that the R-33 flies at around 1350 m/s at 24km of altitude while the SR-71 flies at around 1050 m/s so in very few seconds it will reach the SR-71 if it is just 300 meters ahead of the MiG-31 specailly when the MiG-31 flies very high and fast, however the main problem here is the missile has a flying time less than 88 seconds so it must kill the SR-71 is less than 88 seconds