Michael Peck
The Soviet MiG-25 Foxbat was many things. An interceptor, reconnaissance aircraft and a fast, high-altitude, record-setting bogeyman that scared the pants off Western air forces in the 1970s.
But a MiG-25 business jet? Coffee, tea or vodka served by an Aeroflot stewardess at 60,000 feet, the Earth below hurtling past your window at three times the speed of sound? Forget being imprisoned in cattle class on a Boeing 747, your knees jammed into your face for eight hours. Think New York to London in two. That’s traveling in style.
The idea never got off the drawing board. But it was under serious consideration, according to Yefim Gordon and Sergey Komissarov, authors of Unflown Wings: Unbuilt Soviet/Russian Aircraft Projects Since 1925.
The aircraft would have carried five to seven passengers or up to 2,000 pounds of cargo at a cruising speed of Mach 2.35—that’s 1,552 miles per hour. MiG would have lengthened the wings as well as added extra fuel capacity to extend passenger jet’s range to 2,200 miles, versus about 1,100 miles for a Soviet Air Force MiG-25P.
A photo of a model in Unflown Wings shows a stretched-out MiG-25 with a larger and wider forward fuselage. “Behind the flight deck was a passenger cabin with one-abreast seating for six and an aisle, with a port-side entry door immediately aft of the flight deck,” Gordon and Komissarov write. “The cabin could be converted for cargo carriage by removing the seats.”
https://warisboring.com/coffee-tea-or-mach-3-would-you-like-to-fly-in-a-mig-25-business-jet/
