RAF intercepts eight Russian bombers (Tupolev-95 Bear) as Putin provokes West

dahunan

Lifer
Jan 10, 2002
18,191
3
0
Show of strength or taunting or just testing their equipment?



http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2400345.ece
The RAF scrambled to intercept eight Russian nuclear bombers heading for Britain yesterday in the biggest aerial confrontation between the two countries since the end of the Cold War.

The Tupolev-95 Bear bombers were approaching in formation when they were met by four Tornado F3 fighter jets. Defence sources said that the Russian pilots turned away as soon as they spotted the approaching Tornados and did not enter British airspace.

Norway had earlier sent four F16 jets to shadow the Russians as they neared its airspace in what Moscow insisted was a training mission. The bombers had flown over international waters from the Barents Sea to the Atlantic before heading for Britain.

Russian Bears flying in pairs have triggered several alerts this year as they neared the 12-mile British airspace zone, but this was the first time that so many bombers had simultaneously tested British air defences.


The exercise is expensive for the RAF. It costs more than £40,000 an hour to fly a Tornado F3 and yesterday?s operation will have cost at least £160,000. Underlining the scale of the operation, the RAF also sent up an airborne early warning aircraft (Awacs) and a VC10 tanker so that the Tornados could be refuelled.

Colonel Alexander Drobyshevsky, a spokesman for Russia?s air force, said that 14 long-range bombers began missions over the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic oceans on Wednesday night.

In an echo of the Cold War chess game that the Soviet Union and Nato played continuously in the skies around Europe, he acknowledged that ?virtually all of our strategic planes are being shadowed by Nato fighters?.

He later told Interfax that up to 20 Nato jets had scrambled to intercept the Russian aircraft. Colonel Drobyshevsky had announced on Monday that a dozen bombers would practice firing cruise missiles over the Arctic.

This was Russia?s biggest show of strength since President Putin ordered strategic air patrols to resume last month. They were suspended in 1992 after the Soviet collapse because the Kremlin could not afford them.

Until Mr Putin?s decision, the RAF?s main air-defence role around Britain had been to ensure that it reacted swiftly to suspicious manoeuvres by commercial airliners approaching British airspace, with a view to countering any hint of a terrorist-related attack.

The flights are the latest example of Mr Putin?s ability to irritate the West with bold strokes that cost the Kremlin little and delight many ordinary Russians, who enjoy seeing Nato discomfited. He has already pulled Russia out of the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty on arms limitation, and railed against US proposals to install a missile defence shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.
 

ProfJohn

Lifer
Jul 28, 2006
18,251
8
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This type of thing happens thousands of times during the cold war.

Not really much to talk about. Not sure what Putin is trying to accomplish. Most likely this is to impress the people at home more than anything else. Make them think or feel that they are returned to their place as a world power.
 

Aimster

Lifer
Jan 5, 2003
16,129
2
0
Russia is just using these planes to test their stealth aircraft (or rather how to make their aircraft stealth).

If these aircraft are spotted the NATO nations will send aircraft in the air.
Therefore, when no aircraft is sent to the air, Russia can successfully test how stealthy their """"stealth"""" plane is.

http://www.flightglobal.com/ar...us-territory-went.html
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060422/46792049.html

& in other news..

Russia just upgraded their SU-35 and is building a stealth bomber and just began construction of their 5th generation fighter.
 

CrackRabbit

Lifer
Mar 30, 2001
16,641
58
91
Originally posted by: Aimster
Russia is just using these planes to test their stealth aircraft (or rather how to make their aircraft stealth).

If these aircraft are spotted the NATO nations will send aircraft in the air.
Therefore, when no aircraft is sent to the air, Russia can successfully test how stealthy their """"stealth"""" plane is.

http://www.flightglobal.com/ar...us-territory-went.html
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060422/46792049.html

& in other news..

Russia just upgraded their SU-35 and is building a stealth bomber and just began construction of their 5th generation fighter.

Bear != Stealth, in fact I can think of only a few other combat aircraft that would rival the Bear in terms of complete lack of stealth.
 
Jun 27, 2005
19,251
1
61
Originally posted by: Aimster
Russia is just using these planes to test their stealth aircraft (or rather how to make their aircraft stealth).

If these aircraft are spotted the NATO nations will send aircraft in the air.
Therefore, when no aircraft is sent to the air, Russia can successfully test how stealthy their """"stealth"""" plane is.

http://www.flightglobal.com/ar...us-territory-went.html
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060422/46792049.html

& in other news..

Russia just upgraded their SU-35 and is building a stealth bomber and just began construction of their 5th generation fighter.

Bear? Stealth? I laughed. :laugh:

I remember as a kid growing up in Alaska, Bears would penetrate our airspace a couple times a month. Mostly they were just playing the cold war game but they were also testing response times and response force.

Have they put jet engines on those things yet? Even into the 80's they were still propeller driven aircraft.
 

Colt45

Lifer
Apr 18, 2001
19,721
1
0
Originally posted by: CrackRabbit

Bear != Stealth, in fact I can think of only a few other combat aircraft that would rival the Bear in terms of complete lack of stealth.

lmfao.. my thoughts exactly.

Originally posted by: Whoozyerdaddy


Have they put jet engines on those things yet? Even into the 80's they were still propeller driven aircraft.

if it had jet engines it wouldn't be a bear :)
They've got the counter-rotating propellers... highest ceiling of any prop plane, I think. But they dual-props are noisy, I think everyone that has flown on a bear regularly is mostly deaf now.
 

maluckey

Platinum Member
Jan 31, 2003
2,933
0
71
Funny(regarding the link to the Tu-160)!:D

They claim to have STEALTH missles too! IF they actually had the balls to launch FOUR missles in U.S. controlled airspace, you can bet you ass that the United States would have shot them out of the sky as fast as you can say "HELP!".

Russian EW (and CREW) is AGES behing the U.S., and short of time travel or discovering a Romulan Bird of Prey (or even designed a Flux Capacitor) , this is just propaganda.

A good example is that I recently penetrated russian airspace with my homebuilt ICBM's in no less than SIX tests without the Russians responding. What do they have to say about that?

 

bamacre

Lifer
Jul 1, 2004
21,030
2
61
Originally posted by: Whoozyerdaddy
Originally posted by: Aimster
Russia is just using these planes to test their stealth aircraft (or rather how to make their aircraft stealth).

If these aircraft are spotted the NATO nations will send aircraft in the air.
Therefore, when no aircraft is sent to the air, Russia can successfully test how stealthy their """"stealth"""" plane is.

http://www.flightglobal.com/ar...us-territory-went.html
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060422/46792049.html

& in other news..

Russia just upgraded their SU-35 and is building a stealth bomber and just began construction of their 5th generation fighter.

Bear? Stealth? I laughed. :laugh:

I remember as a kid growing up in Alaska, Bears would penetrate our airspace a couple times a month. Mostly they were just playing the cold war game but they were also testing response times and response force.

Have they put jet engines on those things yet? Even into the 80's they were still propeller driven aircraft.

Actually, I think you missed his point.

Send bears in, which they know are not stealth, and see the reaction.

Send in a potentially stealth plane, and see if there is a reaction.

We aren't going to see news reports if a stealth aircraft is successfully stealthy. :D
 

palehorse

Lifer
Dec 21, 2005
11,521
0
76
it's all Bush's fault!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

oh, wait... what?!

I yearn for the days of the Cold War, when our enemies had at least a semblance of decency and civility... and they also tended to shower more often! ;)
 

LegendKiller

Lifer
Mar 5, 2001
18,256
68
86
Originally posted by: bamacre
Originally posted by: Whoozyerdaddy
Originally posted by: Aimster
Russia is just using these planes to test their stealth aircraft (or rather how to make their aircraft stealth).

If these aircraft are spotted the NATO nations will send aircraft in the air.
Therefore, when no aircraft is sent to the air, Russia can successfully test how stealthy their """"stealth"""" plane is.

http://www.flightglobal.com/ar...us-territory-went.html
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060422/46792049.html

& in other news..

Russia just upgraded their SU-35 and is building a stealth bomber and just began construction of their 5th generation fighter.

Bear? Stealth? I laughed. :laugh:

I remember as a kid growing up in Alaska, Bears would penetrate our airspace a couple times a month. Mostly they were just playing the cold war game but they were also testing response times and response force.

Have they put jet engines on those things yet? Even into the 80's they were still propeller driven aircraft.

Actually, I think you missed his point.

Send bears in, which they know are not stealth, and see the reaction.

Send in a potentially stealth plane, and see if there is a reaction.

We aren't going to see news reports if a stealth aircraft is successfully stealthy. :D

What's more logical? Our radar and aircraft that is multiple times more advanced at this point...or they can actually penetrate our airspace with impunity?

The more likely scenarios are below.

Send bears in, we see it, they get a response

They send "stealth" aircraft in, we see it, they get no response so they continue to think they can do something.


Personally, I think it's more likely that we will let them in repeatedly to see exactly what their plane can do. Logically we were able to see their plane, get a radar bounce off of it, but didn't go into acquisition mode because we wanted to find out the different detection levels, radar cross sections, capabilities, ceiling, and any number of other variables that'd be great to know in a wartime scenario.

Let them give away what they want.

 

StageLeft

No Lifer
Sep 29, 2000
70,150
5
0
Originally posted by: Aimster
Russia is just using these planes to test their stealth aircraft (or rather how to make their aircraft stealth).

If these aircraft are spotted the NATO nations will send aircraft in the air.
Therefore, when no aircraft is sent to the air, Russia can successfully test how stealthy their """"stealth"""" plane is.

http://www.flightglobal.com/ar...us-territory-went.html
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060422/46792049.html

& in other news..

Russia just upgraded their SU-35 and is building a stealth bomber and just began construction of their 5th generation fighter.
With their economy they'll burn up half their GDP on that program hah

 

StageLeft

No Lifer
Sep 29, 2000
70,150
5
0
Originally posted by: Phokus
What are you guys babbling about? We should trust Putin. After all, Bush looked straight into Putin's eyes and found him to be straightforward and trustworthy. I mean he looked into the man's soul for God's sakes! http://www.whitehouse.gov/news.../2001/06/20010618.html
What a relief. I definitely trust Bush's judgement, especially when it comes to giving an improptu lie detector via the iris.

 

Aimster

Lifer
Jan 5, 2003
16,129
2
0
Russia's economy has greatly improved thanks to oil revenue.
They can afford to do things now.
 

K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
45,793
32,492
136
Originally posted by: Aimster
Russia's economy has greatly improved thanks to oil revenue.
They can afford to do things now.

lol....Russia is a dying (literally) country and Putin is pining away for the good old days of the USSR

 

Genx87

Lifer
Apr 8, 2002
41,095
513
126
My guess is because this has happened a million times. The Soviets used to send these guys up and the Brits shadow them. I believe many of the pilots used to write to each in real life because they'd see each other nearly every day.

Kind of like a few years ago when that Chinese jet accidentally hit one of our surveilence planes in international waters. Those pilots would email each other.

 

NoShangriLa

Golden Member
Sep 3, 2006
1,652
0
0

It was all over the news, and I feeling games has been played out by all nations for along time....this hardly worth the news.

 

Hayabusa Rider

Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
Jan 26, 2000
50,879
4,265
126
This is for domestic consumption. Putin has made changes in his government, and this is just to prop up support for his policies.
 

imported_Tango

Golden Member
Mar 8, 2005
1,623
0
0
Originally posted by: K1052
Originally posted by: Aimster
Russia's economy has greatly improved thanks to oil revenue.
They can afford to do things now.

lol....Russia is a dying (literally) country and Putin is pining away for the good old days of the USSR

Hum.. I think you missed a few recent data on Russian economy... they are so awash with money they recalled all their recallable debt...
 

K1052

Elite Member
Aug 21, 2003
45,793
32,492
136
Originally posted by: Tango
Originally posted by: K1052
Originally posted by: Aimster
Russia's economy has greatly improved thanks to oil revenue.
They can afford to do things now.

lol....Russia is a dying (literally) country and Putin is pining away for the good old days of the USSR

Hum.. I think you missed a few recent data on Russian economy... they are so awash with money they recalled all their recallable debt...

Check out their population and birthrate data, tell me it doesn't spell trouble (especially combined with being the largest nation by land area).
 

Aimster

Lifer
Jan 5, 2003
16,129
2
0
Russia spends plenty on research. It spends little on actually buying that research.

It wants to develop military equipment that is better than the U.S and sell it.
 

EagleKeeper

Discussion Club Moderator<br>Elite Member
Staff member
Oct 30, 2000
42,591
5
0
Originally posted by: Aimster
Russia spends plenty on research. It spends little on actually buying that research.

It wants to develop military equipment that is better than the U.S and sell it.
And up to this point, they have failed in building better mousetraps.

Within real world testing, they are always a generation behind in technology.

Only once have they had a technological lead - back in the late 60s