Russians testing our defences yet again....

Laurence Batchelor · Post by **Laurence Batchelor** » Thu Sep 06, 2007 7:57 am

The radio was reporting today for the third time in 4 weeks the Russians sent Tu95 Bears to test our air defence reaction times.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/hig ... 641999.stm

In this instance the Bear's were attempting to watch the Royal Navy's live fire exercises.
Of course these were in interantional waters and the Russians have every right to observe, but its certainly a show of force from their military which has recieved increased funding and confidence. For the first time in years they have resumed their long distance maritime patrols due to this extra funding. But importantly they are still using their old airframes.

It's to nice to know we in the UK now have the capability to also send Eurofighter up against them as we now have 1 fully operational squandron and another to follow in a few weeks:

http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,, ... 09,00.html (Includes Video)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... raf121.xml
http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/articl ... 78,00.html

johndon · Post by **johndon** » Thu Sep 06, 2007 8:07 am

Funny how something that was a regular occurance (albeit one that few of the general public probably knew about) not so long ago now appears as a headline on the Sky News website...

John

Dustermaker · Post by **Dustermaker** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 1:19 pm

I think we should randomly launch missiles near Russia......Just to test their reaction.....lol

johndon · Post by **johndon** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 1:21 pm

Dustermaker wrote:I think we should randomly launch missiles near Russia......Just to test their reaction.....lol

They already seem to be quite concerned about that possibility: http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,, ... 13,00.html

John

Tim Jacobs · Post by **Tim Jacobs** » Sun Sep 09, 2007 5:47 pm

I'm sure the Russian aircrews are very happy to be flying routinely again. After so many years of sitting around watching their airframes rust away and barely getting enough hours to keep the title "aircrew." With all the petro-rubles flowing, it's not surprising to see this resurgence.

It's been interesting from our side too, with the watchstanders having to pull out old checklists that have been collecting dust for a decade: how to respond to strategic aviation patrols.....

Werner · Post by **Werner** » Sun Sep 09, 2007 5:57 pm

Tim Jacobs wrote:I'm sure the Russian aircrews are very happy to be flying routinely again. After so many years of sitting around watching their airframes rust away and barely getting enough hours to keep the title "aircrew." With all the petro-rubles flowing, it's not surprising to see this resurgence.

It's been interesting from our side too, with the watchstanders having to pull out old checklists that have been collecting dust for a decade: how to respond to strategic aviation patrols.....

They must have faith in the aviation mechanics to get these airplanes flying again after so many years of rust and corrosion. I for one would not want to be in one right now....