Or so they state.

By David Cenciotti
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.

More:
https://theaviationist.com/2017/12/01/the-story-of-the-mig-31-firefox-all-you-need-to-know-about-the-most-awesome-fictional-advanced-high-speed-interceptor-ever/

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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083943/

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