Line pilots were not allowed to fly that high and that fast. The aircraft itself was able to achieve such speeds but the engines were extremely prone to overspeeding and required a very skilled pilot to tame them. SR-71 was no different…

You need to see things from broader perspective. There were only a handful of Blackbirds in the US, all flown by highly experienced, specially trained pilots. In Russia, OTOH, there were airfields full of Foxbats flown by average Valeriy from a nearby village. You simply cannot apply the same rules and allow any hillbilly flyboy ride the thing at its very limits without risking skyrocketing attrition rates.

Let’s stay objective, if Russia only built 20 Foxbats and used only highly experienced pilots for all machines, they would have been easily riding over Mach 3.0, IMHO.

I agree and out of that comes a major shortcoming of the whole weapon system MiG-25 as it was required and finally designed: it could never really perform as it totally outgrew the operational procedures at that time, and totally saturated the operators.

An air force that operates Yak-28 and gets handed over a MiG-25 will ultimately fail in using it. Flying is difficult, handling the engine is difficult, using the weapon system is difficult, and still only one Valeriy is sitting at the controls.
Maintaining such a machine looks like a epic challenge, too, when most Soviet squadrons had problems with the MiG-23, which is less complex in most areas.

Few landmark missions flown by specially picked pilots under specially picked conditions falsify the image.

Actually, pilot saturation was a huge issue even with the Starfighter.

No,no. The jet engines are limited, at high altitudes, by the inlet tempetrature, not by decree.
For exmple, the limit is 130 degrees C for F-4E and 427 degrees C for SR-71.

What happens if you take a MiG-25 beyond the Mach limit?
Correct, you ruin the engine (and have some possibility of loosing control, but that is another issue).

firebar might have read in one of his great books, that only testpilots flew the aircraft that fast. Line pilots were even not allowed to touch the MMO. So much about the operational relevance of his claims.

Nicky76 i have the MiG-25 manual and …

The one where all graphs stop at Mach 2.83 because it is the limit Mach number?

In fact i can prove you with accurate data the MiG-29 at high mach numbers is not much different in agility to a MiG-25.

Please do it!
However, the MiG-29 is not more “agile” “at high Mach numbers” than any Starfighter or Phantom.
—> Understanding Fighter Design

No,no. That was stated by John Barron in his book “Mig Pilot”.
What Belenko said we didn’t know.

As you can see, if you have this book, Barron say that Belenko say that the Mig-25 has 1200 km max range !!!!!

It is not true. As the Mig-25 pilot, Belenko would not say that nonsense.

The book is a hoax.

But at the same time the Israeli-US information about the “Mach 3.2” is a sure thing for you? Was the radar station manned by the Neue Züricher Zeitung or what?
Have you ever thought about the deeper reason American military leaders had when they overstated the abilities of the MiG-25?

Not so.
As I said, the F-14D pilots report in Aviation Week, say the speed limit was 1.88 Mach.

Belenkov said his speed limits were M2.5 or M2.8, the latter in war times.

It is a common hoax.
In fact its propulsion system allows normal fighter maneuvers, which no other Mach 3 aircraft can do.
This fact alone must be regarded as exceptional.

The engine is basically a gas guzzler designed to lift the aircraft off the runway. If used in subsonic and transonic mode, the MiG-25 is beaten performance-wise by any Suchoi 15 (with some margin). That remains so until the Mach 2 mark comes close.

In Iraq, it was all what the much publicised F-14 achieved.
No wander that the Phoenix was retired in 2004 and the F-14 in 2006.

I guess if they had achieved more kills, the Navy would have ordered hundreds of F-14 more.

The american experts, after examination in Japan, said:
“We thought that it was a damned good airplane, and that is what it turned out to be.”
Source: “Mig Pilot”

It has extraordinary maneuverability compared to other Mach 3 airplanes.
Not compared to Mig-29, of course.

What other Mach 3 aircraft can do Immelmans, loops, fast dived, split-s, etc,etc ?
What is more remarkable, all this is offered to civilians, with no flight experiences.!!!
That shows that the Mig-25 is very,very safe aircraft, doing all these maneuvers.

That is something not to be found in any western Mach 3 aircraft for long, long time.

The MiG-25 is the only Mach3-aircraft that is not allowed to fly Mach 3.
That is something you truly cannot find in the pathetic West.

After downing of U-2 in 1960, it was very sensitive to execute overflights, both over Russia and over Nato countries, but there were certainly some provocation flights. There were several West reconnaissance a/c shot down over russian teritorial waters , after 1960, RB-57G, RB-47, etc.

When the Recce Foxbat was finally in service (early 1970ies), using it at strategic reconnaissance asset wasn’t needed any more, at least not over Western Europe. The USA changed to one-use satellites, too.

When the Foxbat was operational, the concept of “provocation” was pretty much abandoned by both sides. The Russians actually never really exercised it (partly also due to lack of relevant hardware).