Venezuela Has Planes, and….

| July 22, 2019

And now they’re chasing ours in open air space.

Seems the Venezuelan military has been shadowing our planes in the Caribbean.

https://www.militarytimes.com/video/2019/07/21/venezuelan-su-30-flanker-shadowing-a-us-ep-3-aircraft/

The article has a video of Venezuelan fighter jet shadowing a US EP-3 in international air space in the Caribbean.

Here’s a second video from the Navy:

I had no idea that Venezuela had any SU-30s, never mind anyone who could fly them.. Aren’t SU-30s Russian planes made by Sukhoi? (How do you pronounce that? Wait – never mind!) They seem an awful lot like copies of ours, or maybe they watch too many reruns of “Top Gun”.  And what’s the plan there, anyway? Show off, or act like the Norks and start shooting at things in the air?

Does this mean we have to start escorting commercial airliners with military planes?

Category: "Teh Stoopid", International Affairs, Navy

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5th/77th FA

Now why would the Ruskies stir up any stuff in another failing socialistic state that sells oil?….Oh wait…never mind.

Does this mean that we will soon have a carrier group in the area or can that be covered from land based aerial artillery platforms? (Air 2 Air Missiles are considered to be a part of aerial artillery)

AW1Ed

The SU-30 “Flanker-C” is a Gen-4, twin engine, two-seat supermaneuverable fighter aircraft developed in the Soviet Union by Russia’s Sukhoi Aviation Corporation. It is a multirole fighter for all-weather, air-to-air and air-to-surface deep interdiction missions. And I have no idea how to pronounce “Sukhoi, but I’d wager several of our usual suspects could come up with one or two.

AW1Ed

I had actually posted an article on the very same subject, but I saw you had it covered.

JacktheJarhead

I believe it is pronounced SUE-HOY.

Jeff LPH 3, 63-66

SUE-HOY; that’s numba 4 on my local chinese restaurant take out menu. So when the aircraft was spotted, the lookout couldn’t say Ship A HOY.

Bill M

Or Sue Eee.

26Limabeans

So it’s not a throw away and they would miss it dearly should something go awry.

Ret_25X

The Flanker has about a 1600 mile range but I’m not sure what the range for a combat loaded plane would be…given the short legs of most Russian fighters, likely far less.

What is of interest to me is that Venezuela does not appear to have any form of AWACS or long range air operations C2 capabilities, so just what are they expecting to accomplish?

My bet is that they seek to get one shot down and “prove” that all of their self inflicted misery is the fault of the “yanquis”.

At some point, we may have to clean house there, but until then, I hope everyone plays it cool. No sense in martyring these assjacks.

Skyjumper

Hmmmm, Venezuelan’s fighter jets screwing around & acting aggressively with our pilots?

Wouldn’t be pretty if our guys start popping rounds at them.

Even “Maverick” (handy Top Gun reference (grin)) could splash a few without breaking a sweat.

Mick

TOP GUN

— groan —

AW1Ed

Trailers for the new one are all over the web.
*yawn*

Mick

Yeah, I just can’t wait for the new one to make its spectacular debut.

The sales of motorcycles and commercial G-1 leather flight jackets covered in bullshit, random unrelated patches and ‘callsign’ name tags are going to soar, and then we’re going to be deluged with a fresh crop of Naval Aviation posers.

On second thought, that may actually be rather entertaining for those of us who wore gold wings. Unless I’ve missed it, we haven’t had any phony USN/USMC pilots/NFOS/aircrewmen around here for quite some time now.

I’m betting that some of the more dedicated posers are already putting their costumes together and creating their amazing tales of Naval Aviation derring-do based solely on the trailers that you mentioned.

Could be fun…

Claw

Mick, I think the last phony Naval Aviator was John Braddy back on 16 Apr 18.

Claimed Shot down over VN, wounded, got a Navy Cross, etc.

Reality, was in the Army, only award was a Good Cookie./s

AW1Ed

Just read an article where the movie folks removed a Taiwan Flag patch on his jacket, and replaced it with a Japanese one. Don’t want to upset the Chinese, and have the movie banned there.

Mason

Naw, the Chinese don’t like the Japanese any more than the Taiwanese. The studio removed the Japanese and Taiwan flag from the original jacket. Might not be overtly to please the Chinese sensors, but I’m sure that’s why the change.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/07/22/did-mavericks-top-gun-jacket-change-please-chinese-government.html

Mayhem

LOL ! “There I wuz, sittin in the cockpit of mah F-39 Fighting Fulcrum gittin ready to launch sideways off the USS Santa Maria, when the Commander in Chief personally contacted me over the headset to tell me good luck and good hunting…..

Skyjumper

Speaking of trailers AW1Ed
(nice seque,eh?), 2019 EAA Air Adventure is
celebrating 50 Years in Oshkosh AND “Year of the Fighter”.

The F-35 Lightning II, A-10 Thunderbolt II, and F-22 Raptor demo teams will perform abbreviated demonstrations as part of the daily air shows during AirVenture.

EAA trailer for you.

Skyjumper

Opps, forgot to add this one.

Tom Reilly’s XP-82 Twin Mustang

Mason

A flyable Twin Mustang? Impressive he got it going. I watched some of his progress a while back. Despite looking just two P-51s tied together, there was some absurdly low percentage of parts that are actually interchangeable.

AW1Ed

Very cool. Thanks, Skyjumper.

Huey Jock

Assuming the pics are current and not file footage, I didn’t see any weapons on the wings.

Did anyone else?

11B-Mailclerk

The gun is always there.

As is “oops”.

chooee lee

Suck-A-Hachi I believe.

Jeff LPH 3, 63-66

Don’t cry for me venezuela, Yooooooor goinggggg to get your ass kicked, so stay away, and don’t mess with the Red White and Blue.

Mick

I’ll take ‘Russian Pilots at the Controls’ for $1000, Alex.

AW1Ed

You won the Daily Double!

Mason

They only did that in Korea, Cuba, and Vietnam. What’re the odds they’ll use that same old trick again. 😉

The Stranger

Be nice if we could capture one…

Bill R.

In 1997/8, one of my maintenance officers, a captain at Kunsan AB had an assignment to Venezuela as a liason for the F-16 program. He was pretty excited that first he had to go to the defense school to learn Spanish. Cool guy, he helped me make MSgt. Wish I could remember his name.

Club Manager, USA ret.

When I was at Howard in Republic de Panama in 83-84, I think it was the Vice AF South or the Wing Commander who used to go to Venezuela to get his F-16 time in.

Bill M

Probably Cuban pilots.

Nice airplane you got there. It’s be a shame if anything happened to it.

A Proud Infidel®™️

Here they go a-stirring the proverbial shitpot, pity if someone should make them lick the spoon!

Fyrfighter

Hmm, if they’re that close, what would happen if the P-3 happened to pop some anti-missle flares / countermeasures?

AW1Ed

That would be considered a hostile action, Fyrfighter. To mess with them- don’t ask how I know this- slowly lower the flaps and pull power until he has to bank away or stall. Can’t out run a jet, especially in an Aries, but you can out slow them.

26Limabeans

That’s funny. Kinda like slowing down when someone is tailgating.

26Limabeans

And I never look at them when they eventually pass me. You just know they are flipping you off.

Fyrfighter

Fair enough.. shame they couldn’t claim to have just hit the wrong switch… but I do like the idea of treating them like a tailgater…

Mason

“Bogey’s airspeed not sufficient for intercept.”

Deckie

Classic Simpsons. Classic.

MustangCryppie

It pronounced “soo hoy” comrades.

And looking at that video, sure didn’t look that close to me. I’ve experienced MUCH closer. Pucker factor 15 close.

I’m sure my fly boy comrade Ed has also.

Then again, they kept changing the magnification so you can’t really tell the distance. However, if we had magnified video of some of my intercepts, we would have only seen rivets!

Jus Bill

Remember the Russian airlift to Venezuela a couple of weeks ago? Remember how they were billed as “maintenance and support personnel”? Wanna bet there were some pilots included in the “support personnel”?

Just An Old Dog

The Venezuelans have had these since 2006-2008.. they’ve purchased batches up to 2015, They have 36 on hand.

Toxic Deplorable B Woodman

They have jets. They have pilots. But do they have fuel?