Intercepted a B52 flying in international airspace. Then had the cheek to wag wings, the recognised signal to follow him. Then cut across the B52's nose dangerously close causing wake turbulence.

 

 

Keep on topic and out of any political foray!

17 minutes ago, charliearon said:

Keep on topic and out of any political foray!

Hard to see how you can do both here. 😏

Should have blown the rascal out of the sky. Assuming the Buff had any defensive capability to do it with. Probably not.

7 hours ago, martin-w said:

Intercepted a B52 flying in international airspace. Then had the cheek to wag wings, the recognised signal to follow him. Then cut across the B52's nose dangerously close causing wake turbulence.

 

 

First up, the wing waggle which the Russian aeroplane did was a wave, not a signal to 'follow me'; the signal to follow me, is a wing waggle, which if followed by an acknowledgment from the other aeroplane you are signalling, is then followed by a slow turn to port to finish up on the desired heading you wish the following aeroplane to take. That is not what happened, this was very clearly a respectful 'hello'.

It's also worth pointing out that, whilst it is true that this particular B-52 was in international airspace, the international airspace it happened to be in at the time, was over the Black Sea, so what the B-52's mission was, is likely a Russian radar probing mission, in order to check Russian response times for intercept. The RAF do exactly the same thing with Tu-95 Bears over the North Sea, and they jam GPS and GLONASS in the area too. Likewise, the USAF do the same thing when stuff gets near their territorial limits, particularly near the Bering Strait.

You will note that the NATO territory bordering the Black Sea is Turkey; in 1962 it was when the US placed missiles on Turkish soil, that the Soviets responded by placing stuff on Cuba, creating the crisis. So this is a very provocative place to operate NATO equipment and has been since the start of the Cold War. It is only to be expected that Russian aeroplanes would intercept any potential threat in the area, they wouldn't be doing their job if they didn't, and as noted, it is exactly what NATO do too. Unless you imagine that if a Russian Air Force Tu-95 was cruising up and down 20 miles off the coast of Atlantic City in 'international airspace', that the USAF would not send a couple of jets out there to see what it was up to and formate on its left side alongside the cockpit, as per the standard intercept procedure.

Lastly, that Russian interceptor wasn't dangerously close when it turned, it performed a break off in a position well above the B-52 so that it would NOT cause wake turbulence, and this was chosen so that the pilots of the B-52 would be able to see it had cleared formation with them through their forward and skylight windows. You need to be aware of just how flipping huge the Su-27 is; it only looks close because the Su-27 is massive, it has a forty-eight-and-a-half foot wingspan and is over seventy-two feet long. For comparison, an F-16's wingspan is about sixteen feet less than that of the Su-27 and it is about twenty-two feet shorter.

 

Edited October 6, 20205 yr by Chock

Chuck you are 100% correct but fake news hits again.

OK then. Back to DEFCON V or whatever the stand down is:) I seem to recall a news video many years ago of NATO fighters coming up behind a Bear Bomber so close you could see the crew member in the tail gun position, then the guy held up a Coke or maybe it was a Pepsi. Detant.

The real questions are how did the media obtain the video and why was it released to the public in the first place?

4 minutes ago, jabloomf1230 said:

The real questions are how did the media obtain the video and why was it released to the public in the first place?

If it was a genuine 'that was too close' incident, there would doubtless have been some diplomatic traffic about it, and they would probably have also released some audio of either the Russian pilot, or more likely his/her controller, asking the B-52 to comply, but since you can clearly see that the camera zooms in (a lot), it's actually nowhere near the bomber.

Obviously there was no threatening radio traffic, or that would have also been released for a bit of political capital, or maybe even leaked because pretty much anyone can monitor and record radio traffic between opposing forces, because it isn't encrypted, for obvious reasons.

This sort of thing happens pretty much every day, because bombers have to practice flying at their ready points, and interceptors have to practice intercepting. Likewise there are submarines all over the place doing this sort of thing daily too.

Chances are it was just some crew sticking it on youtube or some such, since without any audio, and no obvious way to identify which crew or aircraft it was so long as they were smart enough to do it anonymously and not leave any metadata on the video file, it would be next to impossible to say which crew had uploaded it and when the incident actually occurred, because these things occur all the time.

1 minute ago, jabloomf1230 said:

The real questions are how did the media obtain the video and why was it released to the public in the first place?

The unfortunate answer is that everywhere there is trash, even in our cockpits (who gave the media the clip?).

Now a low media outlet had "Breaking news" and for the moment they became popular.

The real good news is that this is happening for a long time for many years and we, the pilots up there don't want to fight with anybody or start a war (still normal people with brains) but the politicians and fake news it's another thing. 

 

Yup. I remember having a somewhat heated discussion with an RAF officer back in I think 1979, after he said (in relation to such training/patrol intercepts): 'when the Russians attack...', at which point I stopped him and said: 'whoa there, what do you mean when the Russians attack? Do you know something we don't?' 🤣

I thought bombers were passe anyway in super power confrontation. If the s*** ever hit the fan I figure it would be ICBM's and hypersonic missiles. Quite different from the days of DR. Strangelove. No chance of a call back.

1 hour ago, PATCO LCH said:

 If the s*** ever hit the fan I figure it would be ICBM's and hypersonic missiles. Quite different from the days of DR. Strangelove. No chance of a call back.

Unfortunately if it does hit the fan that's the end of everything.

All these treaties are just a politicians joke, what keeps it as it is, is just FEAR as long as clear minds prevail.

War is going on even today but in a different shape and form, all these airplanes, tanks drones are just for show and for somebody to make money. 

Mr Chock...

So whats the diference between a wing wave and a waggle? Seems the same control input to me.

As a retired proffesional photographer I know all about flattened perspective and steepened perspective, but that still looked close to me. Yes he zoomed in, but as he zooms out just as the Russian passes it looks close. Subjective of course, we have no means to measure, but my opinion is close.

Interceptions I've seen, for example a recent RAF interception of a Bear, was simply flying alongside to observe, to ensure no airspace violations. Nothing aggresive. No banking in front of an aircraft.

 

So yes, this stuff does happen every day, but banking into the path, or just above the path, of another aircraft, close or not so close, doesn't. 

The objective with an intercept is to be close enough to identify the aircraft. No closer.

 

https://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Military_Interception_Signalling

 

 

Edited October 7, 20205 yr by martin-w

22 hours ago, martin-w said:

dangerously close causing wake turbulence.

Interesting to note that the BUFF was affected by the wake of the much smaller (yet large for a fighter!) jet. Unless the crew just twitched the yoke for effect... nah.. 

17 hours ago, charliearon said:

Keep on topic and out of any political foray!

OK  - DAAYUMMM! Those Flankers sure are sweet looking rides! If it looks right, it flies right. 

15 hours ago, PATCO LCH said:

Should have blown the rascal out of the sky. Assuming the Buff had any defensive capability to do it with. Probably not.

If only the Flankers had positioned themselves to the rear of the BUFF.. or do BUFFs not have tail guns these days?

1 hour ago, martin-w said:

... but banking into the path, or just above the path, of another aircraft, close or not so close, doesn't. 

Ah, those Russian fighter jocks...