If you thought you knew everything about the MiG-31, you were wrong!

Based upon a 1977 novel of the same name by Craig Thomas, “Firefox” is a techno-thriller action film produced, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, released in 1982.

Most (if not all) the aviation geeks have probably seen the movie at least once.

The movie focuses on a plot to steal a Soviet MiG-31 (МиГ-31 in Cyrillic script), NATO reporting name “Firefox”, a stealth interceptor aircraft, capable of Mach 6 and bring it back to a friendly base where it can be analysed.

The shape of the Firefox differs a lot between the first novel and film. The version in the novel resembles a MiG-25 “Foxbat”, much like the real Mikoyan MiG-31 “Foxhound”. The movie version is a more futuristic design, unlike any other planes of the 1970s or 1980s. Indeed, the aircraft seems to have been influenced by the speculation about what the soon-to-be-revealed “stealth fighter” might have looked like.

Although the whole story is hardly plausible, what’s really interesting about the movie is the MiG-31 and some of its capabilities (some of those were not available at the time the novel was written or the movie released, but became available in the following decades): along with its ability to evade enemy radars and fly at hypersonic speeds, the Firefox featured a Thought-Controlled Weapons System, uses signals from the pilot’s brain to target enemies and fire weapons; however, it only responds to commands thought in Russian. The aircraft was fitted with a camera system that allowed the pilot to see images from his “6 o’clock”.

Two prototypes of the MiG-31 were built (according to the fictional story). The first prototype was stolen by Major Mitchell Gant (Clint Eastwood) who evades the Soviets’ attempts to stop him, reaches the Arctic ice pack where it lands to be refueled and rearmed by the crew of a submarine. The second prototype is launched to intercept the stolen Firefox. The subsequent, long dogfight is (needless to say) won by Gant.

A second novel was written by Craig Thomas in 1983. “Firefox Down” did not become a feature film even though the cover of book depicts the MiG-31 as it was in the movie.

The MiG-31s involved in the dogfight. (Credit: Warner Bros)

Graphic designer Kurt Beswick (who has also illustrated the Northrop Low Altitude Penetrator concept for our site) has been researching and studying the aircraft featured in the 1982. He has also launched a website that acts as an online resource of information about the Firefox and its special effects.

Kurt has also produced a technical “whitepaper” to accompany the illustration that you can find at the top of this article. “Note that it’s all pulled from the movie and/or made-up by me and not meant to be taken seriously, it’s just for fun. Obviously a plane of this design and configuration wouldn’t be hypersonic, but for the sake of the film (and book) I keep it accurate to the details,” he wrote in an email.

Here below you can find some of the most interesting parts of the whitepaper.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The fundamental purpose behind the MiG-31 Firefox program was to develop an aircraft capable of intercepting anything the West currently had, which at that time were Lockheed’s SR-71 Blackbird, U-2B, TR-1, and the D-21 drone.  The cold war was still at its peak and the need to “keep the other guy honest” led the United States to begin overflights of Russia with spyplanes.  Thus, the Mach 3.5 Lockheed D-21 drone that launched from a “mothership” SR-71 was the only real concern Russia had in 1982.  The Americans already had several successful launches and recoveries of the unmanned aircraft above 100,000 feet, Mikoyan-Gurevich needed to make this their primary target.  Much of what they had learned from the MiG-25 Foxbat programme was applied to create one of the most advanced aircraft to ever take to the skies.  The Firefox was at the forefront of aviation technology and the United States recognized this.

The MiG-31 budget kept getting larger and the hopes of building more than two prototypes quickly began to diminish.  The titanium manufacturing process alone was already far beyond the initial budget for the program, but officials pushed forward regardless. They were not to be outdone by anyone, and they most certainly would not allow the American’s to overfly their aispace unchallenged any longer. Firefox was designed to be the ultimate high-speed, high-altitude interceptor.

POWERPLANT

The Firefox used a pair of Tumansky RJ-15BD-600 high-bypass afterburning turbojets capable of producing 50,000 lbs. thrust each.  These were heavily modified, uprated turbojets based upon the engines from the MiG-25 Foxbat programme.  Russian engineers took what they learned from high-mach turbojet engine technology and applied acquired US engine manufacturing technology to the Tumansky 600 series engines, built within the same footprint of the current R-15BD-300 design.  The introduction of high-bypass air intake systems helped produce the most powerful conventional turbojet engine of its day, surpassing even the US built 32,000lb P&W J58, used in the much revered SR-71 Blackbird.

In addition to these massive engines, the Firefox had six Soyuz/Komarov solid rocket boosters, using a solid-propellant with a proprietary ignition/shutoff system.  These rockets could be used to augment the main engines, providing an additional 15,900 pounds of thrust.  These were normally used during take-off under full load or high-speed dash acceleration. In some rare cases, test pilots were known to engage these rockets at extreme altitudes where thin air produced flame-outs on the main engines.  The first flying prototype was taken to 131,079 feet setting a new world record, breaking the previous record of 123,492 ft. held by a Ye-266M.

The compressor blade components were manufactured of pure titanium, a first for Russian aircraft manufacturing.  Fuel was cooled via the centerline ventral air intake and then pumped through a complex series of conduits around the giant Tumansky engines to keep them cool, as well as throughout much of the airframe.  Much of this technology and ideology was gleaned from information obtained by Russian agents on the production of the SR-71 Blackbird, which used similar cooling principles.

By alternating wastegate control between the dorsal and ventral air intakes using ramps, thereby more accurately controlling the engine-breathing, the RJ-15BD-600 could achieve incredible thrust to weight ratio and excellent high-altitude air-breathing qualities. Achieving Mach 6 was possible, although this was considered ‘maximum’ speed which was ineffecient to maintain for any period of time due to the MiG’s massive fuel consumption.  Cruise speeds were more in the range of Mach 3.8 to 4.8, and operational altitudes under normal conditions were considered to be in the range of 95,000 to 105,000 feet.

The Firefox at the rendezvous with a submarine in the arctic (Warner Bros).

AIRFRAME

The airframe was composed mostly of titanium and SS-118, a stainless steel/nickel alloy that was used extensively in the later model Foxbats.  The MiG-31 was the first Soviet aircraft to extensively use titanium in the structure, it wasn’t until the mid 1970’s that Russian manufacturing technology reached a point where working extensively with titanium was actually realistic.  However, with the addition of a radar absorbent material coating the aircraft, surface heating became a major problem.

To partially combat this issue the plane was designed with a very thin aspect-ratio to the leading/trailing edges of the wings, much like the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter.  The nose and engine nacelles were designed based upon seamless flat-angles to minimize air friction and reduce overall drag.  All rivets were countersunk, unlike most Russian aircraft preceding it, and there were virtually no exposed protuberances, sensors or seams anywhere on the craft.  Expansion joints were built into the wings of the aircraft to allow for expansion/contraction of the skin due to this surface heating.  The weapons bays were internal and missiles were carried on retractable launching racks behind flush-mounted doors on the port and starboard sides of the plane.  Many different methods of heat-reduction were tested, but in the end the airframe was still a giant heatsink, not unlike its MiG-25 forefather.

The airframe had “stealth” characteristics, however there was much debate over the need for this considering the speed and altitude capabilities of the aircraft.  It used a three-fold combination of countermeasures to make itself virtually undetectable to enemy radar systems.  The design of the aircraft was angular enough to deflect much of the incoming radar away from its point of origin, the most basic form of “stealth” technology.  In addition to this, the skin of the craft was coated with a radar absorbent material (RAM) very similar to American Stealth technology at the time.  Finally, the MiG had electronic countermeasures (ECM) that could jam enemy early-warning systems.  However, there was no way to effectively cool the exhaust of the giant Tumansky engines which gave the MiG-31 a massive heat signature for heatseeking missiles, which was considered one of the aircraft’s only major weaknesses.

AVIONICS SYSTEMS

The Firefox was the first aircraft to effectively use an operational thought-controlled weapons management system.  Not only was it a fully operational and working system, it was also rather simple and unobtrusive from a mechanical standpoint.  The receptors were mounted inside the specially designed helmet and linked to the aircraft’s central computer system via a fiber datalink.  The pilot simply had to think (in Russian) about what weapon he wanted selected and could execute the command to launch the missile mentally.  This is what is known as an EEG Feedback system.  The pilot did not fly the aircraft via thought, he only controlled the weapons systems by thought.  Most of the fly-by-wire systems in the aircraft were considered new technology at the time, but the Thought Controlled Weapons Management System was truly revolutionary.  Mikoyan-Gurevich also managed to develop a synthetic aperture radar system for the plane which gave it even more mission flexibility, including being well suited for recon missions.

The MiG-31 Firefox had a range of 3,000 miles. (Warner Bros).

FATE OF THE FOX

I didn’t really follow the timeline of the Firefox novel according to Craig Thomas, because quite frankly I thought it was ridiculous to go through all of that effort to steal the plane only to crash it into the ground (as in “Firefox Down”). I instead took a few liberties with it, but still kept in line with the known facts.  IE: The full-scale mockup of the Firefox really was filmed in and around a hangar at Edwards Air Force Base.  So what I did was create a bit of a “history” for the aircraft.  I thought to myself; ‘If this were an actual stolen Soviet fighter, where would the US military brass go with it?’  The first logical choice, since the plane was headed toward Alaska at the end of the movie, would be a secure facility in Northern California, probably Beale AFB since it has vast support capabilities and it’s fairly remote (they operated SR-71 and TR-1 spyplanes out of the base for years).  Here, the majority of the initial inspection and study of the aircraft would be done.  From there they would probably take it to Groom Lake to join the “Red Hat” squadron that consists of other acquired Russian military hardware.

Once the majority of the plane had been disassembled and reverse engineered over a period of several years, it would eventually find its way to the Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB in southern California. There, it would spend the rest of its life undergoing high-speed flight testing and metallurgy research in conjunction with their already-existing SR-71 testbed programme, not to mention study of the thought controlled weapons system. The possibilities are endless from there, perhaps the F-22 Raptor program would have had quite a different outcome had any of this actually been real.

CONCLUSION

The Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau succeeded in creating an aircraft with capabilities far beyond anything the west currently had by using the proven “brute force” design tactic so typical of Russian military aircraft.  The creative minds at the Mikoyan-Gurevich design bureau learned as much about what was being done at the time as they could, then improved upon the concepts in many ways.  The west recognized this as an opportunity to even the table and consequently made the radical decision to steal the aircraft from Russia. They succeeded in doing so, succeeding also in destroying the only other prototype example of the MiG-31.

With both aircraft gone, all of the program funding used to build the first two prototypes gone, and several of their lead engineers killed in the process, Mikoyan-Gurevich decided not to reinstate the Firefox program.  This effectively ended the legacy of one of the greatest, most powerful and technologically advanced aircraft of our time.  There have been many stories about how the Firefox was never spoken of again within the corridors at Mikoyan-Gurevich.  All records of it, along with the tooling, were destroyed shortly after it was stolen and there exists no mention of the programme in any Russian aviation literature.  It was viewed by many top Russian officials as an embarrassing end to such an incredible machine.

Illustration by Kurt Beswick. Be sure to visit his website for tons of details about the MiG-31

Some F-117s have already taken the road to the scrapyard, others continue flying. Enjoy your Black Friday with a Black Jet story.

As already reported, an F-117 Nighthawk was spotted on a trailer on US-95, south of Creech AFB, in southern Nevada, on Nov. 13, 2017.

Although we don’t know exactly where the aircraft was being transferred, it is safe to assume the aircraft might be heading to the boneyard, to be scrapped or prepared for a museum.

Indeed, in accordance with the National Defense Authorization Act of 2017, the USAF will retire the fleet permanently, once and for all.

Actually, the U.S. Air Force will not remove all the F-117s this year: one aircraft will be divested by the end of 2017 (possibly the one on the trailer); the rest will be withdrawn from use at a rate of four every year, beginning in 2018.

So, whilst the final “demilitarization” of the Stealth Jet (officially retired in 2008 but maintained and kept in a “Type 1000” storage to be occasionally flown at Tonopah Test Range until today) is a sad news for aviation enthusiasts all around the world, the fact that not all the F-117s have been permanently retired means that there will probably be a few more chances of watching the Black Jet fly somewhere over Nevada (or somewhere else).

As happened on Nov. 14 (the day after the F-117 was photographed on a trailer south of Creech AFB) at 09.20AM LT, when another F-117 was spotted flying north of Rachel,  Nevada. Noteworthy, the Stealth Jet was not flying alone (or close to another F-117, as happened, for instance, in 2016) but it was chased by a two-seater F-16.

Our friend G. from the outstanding lazygranch.com website shot some interesting photographs of the unusual formation. “The image is backlit, but the plane shapes are distinctive enough to identify the type of aircraft” he wrote in his post. Indeed, the photos lack a bit of quality (it would have been interesting to ID the F-16 by the presence of some particular markings or code), but according to G. there’s a reason for this:

I had used the camera to do long exposure photography as in this web page: http://www.lazygranch.com/letap.html

This time I had used the 400mm lens instead of the 200mm lens I used in the letap.html page. I managed to kill 4 camera batteries doing this. The problem was the freezing weather was effecting the battery life.

The 400mm lens was essentially set up to focus at infinity. In these multi-frame long exposure series of photographs, the lens is left in manual focus since there is nothing in the frame to auto focus on. The camera is initially focused by hand to get the sharpest image of the lights on Papoose Mountain, which are the lights on the mountain in the distance. Papoose Mountain is what you see as a background in the base photographs done from Tikaboo Peak.

I had one poor quality camera battery left. I normally don’t use it because it only charges to about 55%. I had left the 400mm lens in manual focus. When I heard the aircraft, I put in the poor quality battery. The planes were far enough away that the EOS system considered them to be sharp enough to allow the images to be taken. When the planes flew north so that the sun was in a better position and the planes were closer, the camera wouldn’t fire. I missed some great shots. That was when I figured out the lens was left on manual focus.

Eventually, G. added an interesting comment to his post: “Groom Lake uses two seater F-16s”.

Therefore, although the Air Force has started retiring the type (again), it’s nice to see that someone is still enjoying a daylight ride in one of the once most secret and futuristic aircraft ever built. The accompanying F-16 makes the sighting  even more interesting…

Visit this link and let me know what you think.

Above: composite photo made using a crop from a Foster Van Schaick taken in 2014 and one of the screenshots from a video filmed by Randy Williams and made available to The Aviationist by Brett Wyman.

What appears to be an F-117 Nighthawk Stealth Jet was spotted yesterday on the road south of Creech AFB, Nevada.

The above composite image was obtained by merging two screenshots from a video filmed by Randy Williams and made available to The Aviationist by Brett Wyman who first posted them on a FB group focused on Nellis AFB.

The screenshots clearly show what seems to be a (real or mock?) F-117 Nighthawk stealth jet, hidden under protective cover, on a trailer spotted on Route 95 south of Creech Air Force Base.

Side by side, here are the two screenshots provided by Brett Wyman from the original Randy Williams footage.

Although where the aircraft was being transferred is unknown it’s probably safe to assume it was collected at Tonopah Test Range. Indeed, since 2014 we have documented the flights of some F-117 Nighthawk Stealth Jets over Nevada. Last year we published a video showing two F-117s flying in July 2016, filmed from the distant hills east of Tonopah Test Range.

Desert conditions of Nevada are perfect for maintaining the stealth jets in pristine conditions (due to the low level of humidity and hence, lower probability of corrosion).

Therefore the U.S. considered the F-117 somehow useful in a current scenario so much so, they continued to fly some of the preserved jets, every now and then, in plain sight, to keep the pilots current and the aircraft airworthy and ready.

However, the 2017 defense budget retired the fleet permanently. In fact, “in accordance with the National Defense Authorization Act of 2017, passed Dec. 23, the Air Force will remove four F-117s every year to fully divest them — a process known as demilitarizing aircraft,” wrote Oriana Pawlyk recently.

According to Pawlyk, one F-117 was scheduled to be divested this year and approximately four every year thereafter.

The one spotted yesterday may have been that one, heading for the boneyard, a museum or something else. Anyway, if you know something more, let us know in the comments section or by sending us an email.

Update Nov. 15, 07:00 UTC

The Aviationist’s writer Tom Demerly and his girlfriend Jan happened to be in Nevada for Aviation Nation. He saw the F-117 under tarp as well. Here’s his recollection of the “sighting”:

We were east bound going back toward Las Vegas from the Nevada/California border after shooting photos all day at the Jedi Transition.

Both of us were tired having gotten up at 3:00 AM that morning to drive to the Jedi Transition/Star Wars Canyon near Death Valley. It gets dark early there. There is only one road in that area, and we did have a little difficulty locating that road, US-95, on the way back to the junction in Beatty leaving Death Valley, California and going back into Nevada.

Once we got on the road headed west there was no traffic. The road is sparsely travelled even during the day. It is absolutely black out there at night. Zero lights, zero power lines. Nothing, just the road. Earlier we had seen herds of donkeys, huge desert hare, fox and jackals along the road.

We stopped briefly to photograph the donkeys in the dark, pulling off the road to illuminate them with our headlights. I saw the truck with the covered load coming towards us once we got on US-95. It appeared to have at least one, maybe two vehicles following it and extra forward-facing lights.

The lights were incredibly bright, facing outward from the load, making it difficult to see what was on the trailer as we passed each other going in opposite directions. It would have been impossible to grab a quick photo because of those lights.They were not moving excessively fast, but we were headed the opposite way, so we only saw it briefly. I recall, immediately after we passed it, trying to figure out what was under the tarp.

We decided it may be an aircraft being moved somewhere for static display or some type of radar test model- or something more banal like a piece of a big sign or construction equipment, but that idea seemed odd, especially after dark on those remote roads. It wasn’t easy driving. We could not see the angle of the forward portion of the load, which would have given it away, because of the bright lights. We only briefly saw the back two-thirds of the tarp.

The back portion of the load protruded off the back of the trailer. That was the tail of the aircraft under the tarp. In retrospect, seeing these photos, it actually becomes pretty clear. As soon as my girlfriend and I saw these photos we were amazed. It actually was an F-117.

Much earlier that day, before sunrise on the way to Death Valley, we stopped briefly at a gas station directly across from Creech AFB. There are no gas stations between Creech and Beatty, so you want to tank-up before you get on that section of road. I noticed a man with a beard in his late 20s, early 30s, park a nice-looking pick-up truck at the edge of the gas station parking lot, then get in a large shuttle van with darkly tinted windows, like an airport shuttle van. He was carrying a large lunchbox. I thought he was a civilian contractor being shuttled onto Creech AFB for some type of civilian support role.

But when the shuttle van (with “Y” license plate) left the gas station parking lot going west it continued for quite some time. There is nothing out there. The shuttle made one other stop and we passed it. We could see it behind us for a while, then it disappeared. I supposed, based on the age and appearance of the man who got on the shuttle, and the fact that he noticed I noticed him, that he was working on something potentially interesting.

Thanks a lot to Brett Wyman for allowing us to use the screenshots!

On Oct. 27, 2006 a 25-plane formation celebrated the Nighthawk’s 25th anniversary and 250,000 flying hour.

The Lockheed F-117A, the world’s first operational stealth aircraft and one of the most secret planes ever developed, only flew at night until its existence was publicly acknowledged in 1988.

59 production aircraft (one of those was lost to the Serbian Air Defense during “Operation Allied Force“ whereas another one crashed in 1997 during an airshow in Maryland) served with the U.S. Air Force until the type was officially retired in 2008.

Little less than half of them flew together over Heritage Park at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, home of the 49th Fighter Wing, during the Silver Stealth event for the F-117’s 25th anniversary on Oct. 27, 2006.

Five formations of F-117s flying over Holloman AFB on Oct. 27, 2006 (U.S. Air Force)

The images in this post were taken during the event about 11 years ago: the largest F-117 formation ever, the largest 49th Fighter Wing formation and the largest stealth jets formation ever.

As already said, the aircraft was officially retired in 2008. However, back in 2014, after a few videos and photographs of the aircraft flying few years after the official phase-out (the most recent clip that we have posted here at The Aviationist shows the aircraft flying in July 2016) had already appeared online, the U.S. Air Force affirmed that the Black Jet was kept in a “Type 1000” storage at Tonopah Test Range, Nevada, meaning that the type was to be maintained until called into active service.

To do what? Hard to say.

Twenty-five F-117 Nighthawks line up waiting for takeoff from Holloman Air Force Base, NM. The planes were part of a formation celebrating Nighthawk’s 25th anniversary/250,000 flying hour here. The 25 plane were separated into 5 groups and flew over the base to end the celebration ceremony. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Brian Ferguson)

Designed in the 1970s, subsonic, optimized for the evasion of the C, X and Ku-bands, and completely unable to dynamically map out threat emitters in real-time as the F-22 or the F-35 can do, the F-117 is *probably* still relevant in some low or medium-lethality scenarios but unable to keep pace with most modern threats. In this post you can find the latest available video as well as a few theories ranging from tests of new radar systems which would be capable of detecting stealthy aircraft, to modified UCAV versions, through tests of new weapons, up to a brave hypothesis of getting the Nighthawks modernized and operational again.

Meanwhile, enjoy a sight never to be repeated again: the 25 stealth jets flying together in 2006.

F-117 Nighthawks fly over New Mexico as part of the 25th Anniversary celebration at Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., Oct. 27. The formation was part of the Nighthawk’s 25th anniversary and 250,000 flying-hour celebration. The formation consisted of 25 planes staggered into five separate groups.

25 Nighthawks fill the sky over Holloman on Oct. 27, 2006 (Image credit: Denny Lombard via Lockheed Martin).

Salva

Salva

The Gulf War in 1991 was the first to feature stealth and space use by the U.S. Air Force.

The First Gulf War kicked off on Jan. 17, 1991.

In order to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Operation Desert Storm, the U.S. Air Force has released an infographic that sums up the contribution of the air branch to the war in response to Iraq’s invasion and annexation of Kuwait.

Although several air arms belonging to a wide coalition took part in the Operation against Saddam Hussein’s forces, the bulk of the sorties was provided by the USAF that unleashed its F-117 stealth jets in real combat sorties for the first time (at least publicly).

The figures provided are pretty interesting: they show that the majority of the sorties were flown by support assets (KC-135 tankers and C-130 cargo planes) and that, among the tactical planes, the F-16s, deployed in very large numbers and undertaking a variety of missions, conducted most sorties (almost 14,000).

Click below to download the infographic in hi-rez.

Credit: U.S. Air Force

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