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> Who can say for sure how many kills Iranians have had with
> their F-14 ??
> It can not be checked at all
No but a very large percentage can be. The USA and the Russians use their satellites to check for wreckage in the areas where the combat took place. If there is wreckage today that was not there yesterday then you know an aircraft was shot down. You can tell by the wreckage what aircraft was shot down. That is how both sides know the score from the conflict over the Bekaa Valley in 1982.

Do you realy think that wreckages could be counted by satelites??
You are overoptimistic about that matter.

Do you know that sources from Irak and Iran are greatly differant ?

In fair fight, with similar numbers on each side and without AWACS , Mig-29 and SU-27 have no equal in aerial combat.

German commander of JG-73, said after combat experiences with the F-15/16/18:
“Within 20 km, I can not be beaten in Mig-29. Every fighter which enter this range can be considered destroyed.”

-From the report in “Pilot” magazine, Mig-25PU:

“We were still climbing at 26.000 meter in full afterburner but order came from ground control to cut the climbing because atmosphere temperature was unusually high. Otherwise, we would have been allowed to 27.000 meters.”

Conventional turbojet high performance aircraft are thrust limited to about 21.000 meters. Engine shut off itself because there is not enough air for engine running.

SR-71 is thrust limited to 85.000 ft (about 26.000 m). Above that it has no power.
Also, above that it is longitudinaly and directionaly unstable. Pilot can not control the aircraft.
This is in sharp contrast with controllability of Mig-25.

This is the reason why SR-71 never attempted absolute altitude record.
F-104 is also very bad in this respect, and many were crashed in such attempts.

Since it takes a long time and a lot of fuel to accelerate to the last 0.1 Mach, it wouldn’t surprise me that the pilot put it in a slight dive before he leveled out at Mach 2.34. “Max speed” is always in level flight. I can’t believe that all those reference books are that screwed up.
I can’t believe that an F-14 with 68 deg wing sweep is slower than the F-4 on the deck. Turbofans love thick air too.

Unfortunately, yes. There are many misinformations in older books.
Turbofans with over 0,6 by pass ratio are bad choise for fighters. They do not “like” speed, they are designed for range and endurance.

Yes, the F-14A has a poor thrust/weight, but it still has very low drag. The F-111F is a disaster as a fighter, but its faster than all of them.

F-14 drag is not so low. It has very large volume. It is a big fighter with low thrust.
There is no F-111 pilot who can say that he went past 2,2 Mach.
2,5 Mach was requirement but it was never attained.

None of those jets was designed to turn, and the MiG-25 is the only one of them that is built to shoot down other aircraft. Compare it to any western fighter and it comes out last in visability.

When you have Mach 3 aircraft, visibility can not be very good because of very high temperatures it must endure.
Cockpit of Mig-25 is designed for more that 300 degrees C, that of F-4 or F-106 is designed for 125 degrees.
Jet, compare visibility of F-106 and Mig-25. F-106 is worse.

Its an excellent intercepter, but a MiG-21 could shoot it down if it ever got WVR.

That is true, but Mig-31 is not dogfighter. It is interceptor fighter.

well, the controls are better than the f4 , and dont forget the extra lift of the fuselage and the high wing configuration (without fuselage turbulence-interference over wings) the wing isnt soo thicker, but yes is an fighter optimised for speed and heigh, obviusly not an f16

General aerodynamic design is very good. It is a fighter design, in contrast with SR-71 which is designed purely for streight line flight with no requirement for any maneuverability.

R. A. Belyakov the General designer of MiG gives at p 404
“This MiG-25PU was in fact the Ye-133, which set several world records between 1975 and 1978.”

The second record from 31 August 1977:
Altitude in horizontal flight, 21909,9 m (71,864,47 feet)

All altitudes above that value given by journalists, which had a commercial “pleasure flight” with a MiG-25PU are “zoom-climbs”, when changing kinetic-energy (speed*weight) into height gains. The more serious ones show this through the lines like Gainza. ” I was cleared to 27.000 m.”

R-15B-300 and the D-30F6 are two different engines.

Single spool versus twin spool,
4,75 pressure ratio versus 21.5
TJ versus TF with 0.5 Bypass ratio

Compressor 5 versus 5+10
Turbine 1 versus 2+2

Both are designed for Mach 2,8+ , but the D-30F6 can not use the same inlet-compression feature like the R-15B-300. 😉
.

Regarding Ye-133, you did not mention that these are women records. They are always lower than possible by some particular airplane.

In pilot report about Mig-25 in magazine PILOT, which I mentioned, you can find that ” We were in 5 degree pitch angle in 26.000 m in full afterburner.

Mig-25 can zoom climb to more than 37.000m.

“Mig-25/31”- Gordon:
Operational ceiling is 26.000 m
Ceiling is 21.900 m with full bomb load

Also, you can not ignore Indian and Bulgarian reports of theirs Migs-25.
They say that it has more than 3 Mach speed.

See “Mig”-Belyakov:
“Speed is 2,83 Mach with full bomb load.” page 398

“Speed of 2,83 Mach (3000km/h) is somewhat theoretical. Can exceed Mach 3 without any problems.” page 406

Speaking of engines, D-30F6 is not designed for such a high speed as R-15.
Key word is exhaust gas velocity. You have to know theory of jet propulsion to fully understand this. Internal thermodynamics is very different.

Speed requirement for Mig-31 was not so high as for Mig-25, because there have been requirement for more range, but it is still, with 2,6 Mach, faster than any western fighter.

Mig-31 is 3000 km/h class aircraft. The max speed is, in this case , rounded to higher value than it has realy. It can be seen, also, by much higher percentage of AL in structure and skin.

When armed, I think the F-14, at least the F-14B and F-14D, are faster. An F-14D can even supercruise with four Sparrows. The F-106 is history, but it could fly at Mach 2.3 fully armed.

Agreed. The MiG-25 has no leading edge flaps, slats or camber on its wings, and the wing loading is high. Cockpit visability sucks, and it has no cannon. At sea level, its not even as fast as the F-4. The F-4 can ripple off two missiles for every one a MiG-25 can fire.

Rocky, F-14 (A,B or D) is not designed for very high speed. At high altitudes it can attain 2,3 Mach only in slight dive. In level flight it could do about 1.9 Mach max, whatever version. That is because of engine design.
A famous, often stated number of 2,34 Mach is what is attained by prototype and in slight dive.
At sea level F-14D attained 1,1 Mach, that is true, but it was in test, not in service.

Look at F-14-Modern Combat Aircraft: “F-14 is a half Mach slower than F-15.”

Col. John Boyd, a famous fighter pilot and instructor in Nellis Fighter Weapons School, said:
“F-14 is underpowered, performance is so poor that pilots called it The Tom Turkey. It is a lumbering, poor performing aerial truck.”
“In simulated combat it loses energy too quickly and is easy target.”

I have many old books about F-14 in which it is presented as fighter without vices, and even that it is as agile as F-15. All that was, as it is revealed now, a pure propaganda.

For that reason, also, one must take superlative data about F-22 with extreme caution. A fight in Congres is now taking place about F-22 and it is for that reason presented as best of the best with no vices.
The same old story as for F-14 earlier.

As for F-106, in service it is a bit slower than F-4E and F-4 could do 2,15 M in standard atmosphere.
F-106 could do above 2,1 only in record flight.

It is true that Mig-25 has no LE flaps, slats etc. Cockpit visibility is not so good but look at other Mach 3 aircraft. Look at visibility in SR-71, X-2, Valcyrie. Mig-25 is by far the best in that respect.
AA-6 missiles from Mig-25 have a range of 80 km and these weapons are designed for very high speed. Because of that they are made of steel.
Sparrows AIM-7E have range of about 10 N.M from F-4 for fighter type targets.
Mig-31 have LE flaps, LERX and internal cannon. It is a truly awesome fighter interceptor regarding performance, weapons and avionics.

[B]
That info about Mach 3,2 was a single Israeli radar-reading over Sinai, with a minimum divergation of ~10 %. So the real speed was around Mach 2,88+ or close to design speed of Mach 2,83 (=3000 km/h) and above.
None disputed, that the MiG-25/31 were/are the fastest interceptors in regulary AF service. But to compare those with the special high-speed A-12/SR71s or typical air-superiority fighters like Su-27/F-15 in agility is nonsense.
If a country similar in size to the former SU or Russia, I speak of China, was convinced about the special combat performances of the MiG-25/31 variants, it has not hesitated to buy a few of those at least to explore and learn the special performances years before. 😉

3,2 Mach was detected not only by Israeli radars but also by american radars by 6. Fleet operating near by.
If you speak of ~10% divergence, it applies also that we can add 10% more value for speed, not only reduce it.
Average value was 3,2.

Look at the book Migs- Fact file series. You can note this:
“Mig-25 is 60 % faster than F-15.”
That is true. With underwing weapons Mig-25 has 2,83 M (3000 km/h) and F-15 has 1,75 M. Difference is enormous, you must admit.
By the way, F-15 is by far the fastest US fighter.

Regarding Mig-25 agility, I was reffering to very high altitudes. Of course that at low and medium altitudes it has no chance even against F-4.

Speaking of China, its relations with SU have been on low level for a long time. Only relatively recently have been improved.