2 Russian fighter jets buzz US spy plane over Mediterranean
Two Russian Su-35 aircraft unsafely intercepted a P-8A Poseidon patrol aircraft assigned to U.S. 6th Fleet over the Mediterranean Sea on Monday, according to the Navy. (Navy)
The breathless title is from Fox News. The P-8A Poseidon is a lot of things, but a “spy plane” is not one of them. Its mission is Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance. Background here.
Watch Russian jets intercept Navy plane
Geoff Ziezulewicz
Two Russian Su-35 fighter jets flew “in an unsafe and unprofessional manner” while intercepting a Navy plane Monday, according to a Navy release.
The P-8A Poseidon maritime and patrol reconnaissance aircraft was flying over the eastern Mediterranean Sea in international waters when the 65-minute intercept began, according to U.S. 6th Fleet.
“The intercept was determined to be unsafe and unprofessional due to the Russian pilots taking close station on each wing of the P-8A simultaneously, restricting the P-8A’s ability to safely maneuver,” 6th Fleet said.
Monday’s incident was the third such intercept in the past two months, run-ins where Russian jets failed to demonstrate “good airmanship” and “jeopardized the safety of flight of both aircraft,” according to the Navy.
I wasn’t too worried whenever we got bounced by the Soviets, but that was then. These days they’re much more aggressive, and no one needs another Hainan Island incident. The rest of the article with video may be viewed here: Navy Times
Category: "Teh Stoopid", Navy, Russia
So they don’t have anything to do except annoy US?
That is what the impotent do.
I can see how Fox News mixes it up: They saw Reconnaissance and made the jump to Spy plane. In my youth I knew some in my profession to ply on these errors of judgment and tell young ladies they were a spy…I just told them I was in admin!
For shore duty my Radar Operator found himself at the ASW Operations Center in Bermuda, the poor lad. He got a part time gig as a security guard at the NASA station there. When wooing the tourist lovelies, he was an Astronaut, with the NASA ID to “prove” it.
They were doing great “maritime” patrol and reconnaissance over central Iraq when I was flying there between ‘05 and ‘10
Nosw, now, now ‘Ed, you know that them reporters are even more Nautically Challenged than a bunch of doggie faced, gun bunnied, dirt digging, pony soljers. We all know that the P8 is used to spy underwater Russian boats, aka Targets. It’s also easy to spy it in the sky. Not as easy to spy as that other one we used to use. You know, the one with the wings and motors on upside down, backwards and cattywhumppus? Yeah…that one! You can spy that one from a long way off.
Too bad there wasn’t some Maverick Airedale up Top 2 Gun them down. Even upside down in a crock pit err cock pot he’d cooked their goose and bounced them to the beach like a volley ball.
Swimlane. In. Stay. Good doggy.
Biscuit! Biscuit! Reward him with a biscuit, Ed.
You know how much that ol’ Georgia Pooch likes biscuits…
Nice of them to come in close like that so we can
get a good look “electronically” and snap some
cool photos.
Just out of curiosity…could one of our KC’s
refuel a SU-35 if need be? Close encounter like
that begs the question if they sidled up to a tanker
and asked for fuel would it be possible?
Or are their nozzles metric?
‘beans I may be wrong, but seems like I read/was told sometime/where that the aerial refueling hookups aren’t compatible, but the ground based ones are.
I know that French KC-135’s have drogues that can refuel Indian Su-30s as well as their own Mirages.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJJVnu9ufoI
But the Sukhoi exports are very customizable, so India may have requested a NATO-compatible drogue nozzle instead of a Russian one.
Seems the French would have vapor recovery
nozzles for global warming mitigation…
How come the Russian planes look just like ours?
Because the Commies love to copy our hardware. They pretty much come up short on original tech innovation. To have their first four engine heavy bomber the Soviets and the Chicoms had to copy a captured B-29.
So the Russian planes Russian and harass our Aircraft. This seems like an almost daily feat by the Russians to Russian and play games.I just had to Russian to give this comment.
So why don’t they just spin up “Maverick” and let him return the favor. Seems to me there should be some US fighters close enough to deter the Russian jockeys
The PARPRO program lost over 100 people to the Russians, Chinese, and North Koreans shooting them down just because they could. Our birds should be up with fighter escort for occasions just like this. And should it happen again the airfield the commies fly from should be banged with a dozen or so sub launched cruise missiles to get the point across.
I’m curious where they launched from to reach the eastern Mediterranean. I’m guessing Syria, since otherwise they’d be crossing the airspace of the Turks or somebody else who doesn’t like Russians very much.
I’ll bet they were “illuminated” quite brightly by
various systems in the area.
BTW, the P8 does have certain gear on it to do certain classified missions and such on it. Not its primary mission, but you folks don’t know certain things about that. Spooks do.
U2’s are still flying missions.
Under the guise of global warming research.
Well, there was an EP version proposed long ago, but it was not built. 😉
My only question is can an airman safely and effective display some ‘pressed ham on glass’ form one of the P-8 windows? I feel its appropriate to give the Russkies a vertical smile salute.
Of course. The Observer windows are forward of the wings. May not be very smart with the co-ed crews these days, though.
How do you write “EAT SHIT” in Russian?
According to Google Translate, that would be “Есть дерьмо”. (smile)
This would be the preferred and approved action of the E4 Mafia. Well done!
Maybe we can redesign flightsuits with a long-john style trapdoor..
That would also allow deployment of The Goat!
https://youtu.be/3dzw4t_dB5M
I can see some entertainment value in a pair of F-22s “just happening” to be in such an area.
(In russian) “Why is my radar warning light on?”
“Peekaboo.”
Hmm… if we could put a nice little transmitter in a P-8A, something in the same freq range of a targeting radar.. light up all the the warnings and cause Ivan to soil his depends…
We had some issues at Bagram in 2002, had a Ku band commercial satellite rig, transmission path was perpendicular to the runway. Had more than one pilot dump flares, pour on the power and haul ass when his dashboard lit up. Sorry, guys.
In the early days of Viet of the Nam some
back seat F4 guys were using Radio Shack
radar detectors. Everything was X-band back
then including the SAM illumination radars.
https://youtu.be/2bN62MmT-lw
Man. What tye hell is wrong with the Russians.
Do they really want a fight?
They seem desperate to prove themselves. Just like the British Empire, the Russian Empire is gone, in the dustbin of history. At least the British brought parliamentary democracy and civilization to many peoples around the world.
Russia. The 8th economy in the world, after South Korea. They need to fix their home before they come out to play with the big boys.
Why Russian planes look just like ours: The US and the (then) Soviet Union got the extraterrestrial designers who were working for Hitler. It took a while for the ETs to get into high places in aircraft design, as it did for tank designers. See Leopard II, M1 Abrams, T64, T72 and T80. Don’t steal that idea; it is germane to a short novel I’m working on.
Didn’t think the Germanes had a gol durned thing to do with it?