Russian jet “buzzes” USAF RC-135
Fox News reports that an armed Russian Su-27 flew within a few feet of an Air Force RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft yesterday over the Baltic Sea, after the Russians warned that they would start busting caps on US aircraft flying over the Levant after a Navy F-18 shot down a Syrian Su-22;
Once alongside, the Russian jet was “provocative” in its flight maneuvers and flying “erratically,” according to another official.
Since June 2nd there have been over 35 interactions in the Baltic Sea region between U.S. and Russian jets and warships, but the incident Monday morning is notable because the U.S. military considered it “unsafe,” according to one official.
[…]
It was not immediately clear how close the US military recon jet was flying near Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave between NATO allies Poland and Lithuania. This fall, Russian moved nuclear-capable ballistic missiles to Kaliningrad, putting some European capitals in strike range.
Meanwhile another Air Force F-15 downed an Iranian-built drone over southern Syria, says another Fox News link;
This is the second time the U.S. has shot down an Iranian drone in less than a month. U.S. officials reported on June 8 that an American fighter jet shot down a drone likely connected to Iranian-supported Hezbollah forces. The drone fired on U.S.-backed troops before it was taken down. An Army spokesman at the Pentagon said at the time that the drone carried more weapons and was considered a direct threat.
Monday’s incident also marks the fifth time since late May that the U.S. military has bombed pro-Syrian forces in southern Syria.
Nice to see our pilots getting a little air-to-air experience. They’re probably getting tired of all of the ground support action.
Category: Terror War
Vlad is gonna be sad if his lads are bad.
I’d like to know details, such as did the USAF pilots give the Russian pilot the 3rd middle finger salute?
Did the USAF guys hold up a card with Отвяжитесь и умрите printed on it?
How is that even a question? Isn’t it standard procedure to make obscene gestures at Russians whenever they try to share airspace? Hasn’t it been so since 1946?
I simply want confirmation for my tax records.
They used to get “pressed ham” from back in my P-3 days. The crew Ordie would drop his flight suit and press his bare ass against the aft observer window. Horrifying sight…
*grin*
I heard a sea story that a female crew member “pressed ham” against the windows, but it was frontal ham. Whole fighter squadron came out to take a look!
If the Russians persist with trying to play ‘chicken’ like this with U.S. aircraft, it won’t end well. It never does.
Eventually someone will miscalculate or display just a wee bit too much aggressiveness, and then it will be ‘game on’.
This has been going on since the dawn of the Cold War. This is nothing new, and rarely, if ever, has it escalated to shooting. We do it to them, they do it to us.
The Chinese did it with one of our P-3s back in 2000 and tried to blame it on us. Didn’t turn out so well for them either. With current tensions it could get really you-gly.
actually worked out great for them. They got unfettered access to one of our spy planes for a few days. We got…nothing.
“The 24 crew members (21 men and 3 women)[25] were detained until April 11, shortly after the U.S. issued the “letter of the two sorries” to the Chinese. The Chinese military boarded the EP-3 and thoroughly stripped and examined the aircraft’s equipment.[citation needed] The crew was only partially successful in their destruction of classified material, and some of the material they failed to destroy included cryptographic keys, signals intelligence manuals, and the names of National Security Agency employees. Some of the captured computers contained detailed information for processing PROFORMA communications from North Korea, Russia, Vietnam, China and other countries. The plane also carried information on the emitter parameters for U.S.-allied radar systems worldwide. The fact that the United States could track PLAN submarines via signal transmission was also revealed to China.”
Yeah, most of that crew should have been court-martialed for failing to destroy the classified equip/ info. No excuse for that dereliction of duty..
I was at flight school the same time as the EP-3 aircraft commander, Shane Osborne. He had to make a terrible decision – ditch his plane in the South China Sea (and undoubtedly have some, if not all, of his crew drown) or land on China’s Hainan Island, knowing the Chinese would get their hands on classified information. I think reasonable people can disagree on whether Shane made the correct decision, but I think a court martial is just a bridge too far.
I’m still wondering how a crew, from the story I read, was not thoroughly trained to destroy Top Secret information and equipment. That little tidbit seems pretty strange
OHD, I agree with you, and my comment was not directed at the pilot, he had his hands full, and did his best i assume to do his job, and get the plane down safely. My comment was directed at the crew, who after the collision were just passengers with one task, destroy everything sensitive / classified within their area, and they failed miserably at that task, though i haven’t heard enough to know if this was due to lack of effort, or lack of training.
Cold War redux.
And… da Ruskies are complaining that the RC-135 swerved dangerously close to their little SU-27, according to Reuters.
pfffft
Yes, because of course their top-of-the-line air superiority fighter can’t outmaneuver a 1956-vintage Boeing 707. Yeah, fuck you too, Ivan.
Not diggin this at all. The RC-135 is one of the airframes my boy might be assigned to next year. How ironic that his father and I were part of the cold war era and now he has an opportunity to be a part of the new and improved version. Awesome!!! /s
Putin will keep it up until we knock one of his planes from the sky.
Tic Toc
Probably a YAK-3
Interesting. Apparently, an armed Iranian drone was shot down by US forces, just a day or two after shooting down a Syrian fighter jet. Is shit getting real?
Waiting for the day we blow one of those fucking fast boats out of the water.
Seems to me we should start accompanying the surveillance planes. President Trump should give a weapons free to our pilots if any planes threaten ours in international space like that. This goes for those retard Iranians in their speedboats. Give one warning and then blow them out of the water. I’m thinking that crap would end tout sweet.
Ditto that, especially for the Iranian boats, they won’t be getting so bold after a few of their boats get blown to confetti!
During operation Steel Spike or Pike (Memory fades a little) off of Seville Spain in 1964, the russians used “Spy” ships disguised as trawlers which every one knew about. So as it goes, one of the trawlers passed downwind from a tin can which blew tubes and this large black cloud of soot came out of the stacks and drifted over the trawler. One of them passed around 100 yards from the OKIE 3 and a bunch of us were standing at the port aircraft elevator and both the russian crew members and OKIE 3 crew members started to wave at each other. FYI. This was the largest nato excersize since op. Torch in 1942.
We had one of those Russian ‘trawlers’ anchored off of Thule AB back in 2006. Felt sorry for them really. Nothing worth seeing from their vantage point.
5 Feet separation? What were they doing, practicing for the Blue Angels?
One time had a fighter put its wing over our wing. He then moved in front of us and then “thumped” us, i.e., hit the afterburners. Shook the shit out of the plane.
There’s always going to be cowboys out there. You can only hope they are competent cowboys.
mount paint ball guns on the sides of the aircraft, when the numbnuts get too close, let loose with about 30 paint balls, the pilot will be so busy worrying about his crapped pants, he will go home!!
“Asked about the prospect of Russian planes buzzing U.S. ships, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said that as president, he would call Russian President Vladimir Putin and tell him to ‘stop it.’
‘Well, first of all, it’s just no respect for our president or our country, and he is tweaking us,’ Mr. Trump said on Wednesday’s ‘The O’Reilly Factor’ on Fox News.
‘If it were me, I will tell you, I would call him and I would say, “Don’t do it. Just stop it. Don’t do it,”‘ Mr. Trump said. ‘And they’re going to respect us, and I’ve had a sort of semi-nice relationship with Putin — [he’s] said very nice things about me, as you know.’
‘But I would say, “Don’t do it.” [If] they do it again, they could have a problem,” Mr. Trump said.
‘I may have to do something which you would hate to do,’ he said. ‘But this is something I wouldn’t want to do, but I would say, “Vladimir — don’t do it. Let’s go. Come on. We’re going to have a good relationship. Don’t do it.”‘”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/may/5/donald-trump-i-would-tell-vladimir-putin-dont-do-i/