I know quite a bit about the 23 having bought one from the Czech Army Air Force in Kbely a few years back. The 23 was super fast at sea level. I flew out of their old interceptor bases there in Poland with former world champion Ivan Tuczech (later killed in his new Zlin when the wing came off at an airshow) and the idea was that armed with a hydrogen-bomb they could fly nap of the earth at well over the speed of sound, pop up for a nav fix drop and continue at ground level towards target then break out, up, release the weapon (lob it) and continue inverted away from the target to get some distance and safety. That is why the US government was worried about the 23. The canopy was a blister type. They left the drop point inverted because rolling upright caused a loss of speed and it was important to get away as far a possible before the flash hit the aircraft and cooked the pilot with a fatal RAD dose. To counter that there was a gold foil shield on rods like a curtain that was held in place with serious springs. When the weapon was pickled the foil shield instantly slid along the rods covering the whole inside of the canopy to protect the pilot. Gold was chosen since it has the highest reflective ability compared to other foils. My aircraft was so equipped. Other facts are many of these planes operated from bases with grass runways, dirt mounded concrete hangers facing multiple directions, with gravity opening doors so in event of our attacking them it would allow some aircraft to still be deployed. Only the immediate area in front of the hangers was paved the takeoff runways are a steep downslope of open cement interlocking blocks filled with dirt and sown with grass seed. Taking off was like Mel Gibson in the movie about CIA involvement in Cambodia and landing was the same. My first flight out of there was pretty exciting but I knew that to land back there I had to flare just right to match the steep uphill slope of the runway, then with wheels on the ground hit the throttle to get up the hill just right to the crest without over-shooting and smashing into on of the hangars. It was complicated further since the plane had skis instead of regular wheels. These 23’s had vestigal wheels that protruded thru the ski like landing-gear doors which took most of the brunt of impact on touch down. Having this formidable aircraft armed with nuclear weapons that close to all of western Europe did scare the hell out of our military.