F-35 vs MiG-25: Why the Much Faster Jet Would Still Lose

Two jets built for different wars

The MiG-25 Foxbat began with a 1958 Soviet requirement for an interceptor that could reach about 1,864 mph (3,000 km/h) and fly up to about 88,600 feet (27 km). The target was the new generation of fast, high-flying American bombers, including the Mach 3 XB-70 Valkyrie then in development.

Mikoyan-Gurevich built it from nickel steel around two enormous turbojets. It first flew in 1964 and entered service in 1970, when the Mach 2 B-58 Hustler was already flying and U-2 spy planes were crossing Soviet territory higher than any fighter could reach.

The F-35 Lightning II first flew in 2006. The Air Force calls the F-35A a multirole fighter, built to replace the F-16 and A-10 and to survive in the most heavily defended airspace.

So one jet was built to run down bombers in a straight line, and the other to see first and stay unseen. That difference decides almost every round below.

Speed and altitude: the MiG-25’s clear win

This round is not close. The MiG-25’s top speed is Mach 2.83, or 1,864 mph, while the Air Force lists the F-35A at Mach 1.6, about 1,200 mph.

Even the MiG-25 treated that number with care. Its airspeed indicator was redlined at Mach 2.8, and pilots usually intercepted near Mach 2.5 to save the engines.

One MiG-25 was tracked over the Sinai at Mach 3.2 in the early 1970s. The engines were damaged beyond repair, and that single dash is where most “Mach 3 fighter” claims come from.

It also flies higher. The spec panel gives a service ceiling of 67,900 ft against the F-35’s 50,000 ft, and on August 31, 1977, test pilot Alexander Fedotov zoom-climbed a modified MiG-25 to 123,524 feet (37,650 m). That is still the absolute altitude record for a jet taking off under its own power.

The MiG-25 is the fastest mass-produced interceptor ever built, which is why it features in our list of the fastest fighter jets.

Edge: MiG-25, by a wide margin.

Stealth and sensors: the F-35’s decisive lead

The F-35 was designed around low observability, with its weapons carried inside. The MiG-25 was never designed to be stealthy: it is a large, slab-sided metal airframe built for speed.

The sensor gap is even wider. The original Smerch-A radar was powerful and hard to jam, but it used vacuum tubes and could not look down to find targets flying below it, a weakness that mattered once bombers switched to low-level attacks.

The West learned this in 1976. On September 6, Soviet pilot Viktor Belenko defected and landed his MiG-25P at Hakodate in Japan, and the teardown revealed vacuum-tube electronics and sparing use of titanium. Japan never flew the type; it simply received this one aircraft.

The F-35 fuses its radar, the Distributed Aperture System’s all-round infrared view and its targeting sensor into one picture on the pilot’s helmet visor. Data links share that picture with every other jet in the flight.

Our guide to stealth fighter jets explains how the shaping and coatings work.

Edge: F-35, and this is the round that decides the fight.

Maneuverability: a 9 g fighter against a 4.5 g interceptor

The MiG-25 was never meant to turn. It was rated at just 2.2 g with full fuel tanks and 4.5 g at most, and one airframe that took an accidental 11.5 g pull was damaged beyond repair.

The F-35A is cleared to 9 g. Its thrust-to-weight ratio is 0.87 at gross weight, against 0.55 for the MiG-25.

The F-35 is not an F-22 in a turning fight. Against a steel interceptor limited to 4.5 g, though, the gap is enormous.

Edge: F-35.

Weapons: missiles, payload and a gun

The MiG-25 interceptor carries four R-40 air-to-air missiles, radar-guided or infrared, on underwing pylons. It has no gun.

The F-35A has four internal weapons stations, which usually means four AIM-120 AMRAAMs in a stealthy air-to-air setup. The Sidekick rack offered with Block 4 raises that to six, and six external pylons bring total payload to 18,000 lb.

It also has an internal 25 mm GAU-22/A cannon with 180 rounds. The F-35B and F-35C carry the gun in an external pod instead.

Edge: F-35.

Combat record

The MiG-25 has a long one. On the first night of the Gulf War, January 17, 1991, a missile fired by an Iraqi MiG-25 shot down the US Navy F/A-18 flown by Lieutenant Commander Scott Speicher.

Against F-15s it mostly lost. Israeli F-15s shot down Syrian MiG-25s in 1981 and 1982, and USAF F-15s downed two Iraqi MiG-25s on January 19, 1991. Our F-35 vs F-15 comparison covers how the Eagle stacks up against its stealthy successor.

On December 27, 1992, a USAF F-16D shot down an Iraqi MiG-25 over the southern no-fly zone, the first AMRAAM kill. Ten years later, on December 23, 2002, an Iraqi MiG-25 shot down an armed MQ-1 Predator drone.

The F-35 first saw combat in Israeli strikes in Syria in 2018. On March 4, 2026, the Israel Defense Forces announced that an F-35I had shot down an Iranian Yak-130 over Tehran at beyond visual range, the first claimed kill of a crewed aircraft by any F-35.

Edge: F-35. The MiG-25 has more kills, but it mostly lost when it met modern Western fighters.

F-35 vs MiG-25: who would win?

The F-35, in almost any realistic scenario. It would most likely see the MiG-25 first on its fused sensors, fire from inside its bays, and the MiG could not out-turn it if the fight came closer.

The MiG-25’s real card is escape. In one 1991 clash, two Iraqi MiG-25s fired at a pair of F-15s from long range, then outran them; 10 American missiles were fired and none reached the MiGs.

That is a way to survive, not a way to win. A MiG-25 could dash in, fire and run, but only if it found the F-35 first, and a stealth fighter is exactly what its radar was never designed to find.

Is there an F-25 fighter jet?

No. Many searches for an “F-25 fighter jet” are really looking for one of the two jets on this page, the F-35 or the MiG-25.

US fighters are normally numbered in sequence, but the F-35 kept the number of its X-35 prototype instead of taking the next free number, 24. The newest US fighter designation, the Boeing F-47, is also out of sequence: it was chosen as a tribute to the P-47 Thunderbolt.

The verdict

The F-35 is the better fighter. It is stealthy where the MiG-25 is not, its sensors are generations ahead, it is cleared to twice the g, and it carries a gun and a larger, more flexible weapons load.

The MiG-25 is the faster and higher-flying aircraft by a wide margin, and it still holds a world altitude record. It was a brilliant answer to the threat of the 1950s, and its successor, the MiG-31, appears in our guide to the best Russian fighter jets.

For the full field, see our ranking of the best fighter jets in the world.