it's a ufo
aka it's a spy plane
see:
"extremely maneuverable" in reference to being able to pull over 9Gs at speeds the F-16s could keep up with
also, the engines are weak enough that they dont have shock diamonds without their afterburners on, yet it can push the plane up to mach 3?
before we get really into this, i just want to point something out about the airborne arms race--
once we made jet engines practical, the race was, quite literally, a race. the goal was to have the fastest aircraft.
but they were stuff at maneuvering.
eventually russia built the mig-31 and its huge wingspan made the west think it was a high performance low-speed fighter, which began the switch from speed back to maneuverability