Historical context time!

This comic pertains to the incident where, in 1976, Viktor Belenko defected from the USSR in a MiG-25. He landed at an airbase located in Hakodate, Japan.

LamiaMiia said:

Historical context time!

This comic pertains to the incident where, in 1976, Viktor Belenko defected from the USSR in a MiG-25. He landed at an airbase located in Hakodate, Japan.

Hey... This is interesting.

Could this be the incident that was the basis of the Clint Eastwood movie Firefox (which in turn was the inspiration for the dogfight sequences in Macross Plus)?

Skribulous said:

Hey... This is interesting.

Could this be the incident that was the basis of the Clint Eastwood movie Firefox (which in turn was the inspiration for the dogfight sequences in Macross Plus)?

Firefox is about the MiG-31, which is the next-generation of the MiG-25. They both are visually similar, and have the same purpose (high-speed interceptor), but they're drastically different aircraft on the technological scale.

The MiG-25 was a huge threat (or so the west thought until they got their hands on one), the west overestimated it so much that it pushed for the development of the F-15 fighter to counter the MiG-25! When the west heard of a "super MiG-25" (the MiG-31) when they interrogated Viktor Belenko, the fear arose again: and this is likely what inspired the author to write the book about (the book Firefox came out roughly a whole year after the defect).