Posted on 05/26/2015 11:01:06 AM PDT by Zhang Fei
Above the South China Sea (CNN)Take-off is swift on the U.S. Navy's P8-A Poseidon -- there's no slow roll down the runway on military flights -- and within minutes, the turquoise blue of the South China Sea comes into view from the window of America's most advanced surveillance and sub-hunting aircraft.
The P8 crew, composed of more than a dozen naval aviators, invited me into the cockpit to watch and to listen. CNN last week first reported on this secret surveillance mission, which eight times received warnings from the Chinese navy to leave the contested area. This is a behind-the-scenes look at the journey.
Approaching the P8-A Poseidon on the tarmac, it's easy to mistake the sophisticated aircraft for one of the many other Boeing 737 planes around it. The P8 is based on a 737 frame, but the similarities end there.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Secret flight? So secret its on CNN.
Classless individual.
My thoughts exactly, if you WANT somebody to know something, you tell cnn and tell ‘em it’s secret, that guarantees they’ll broadcast it.
What the US is doing there is in the spirit of what americans are doing when they flaunt cartoons of Mohammad or refuse to participate with police at checkpoints.
If you don’t stop a bully they just keep pushing. It is our responsibility and duty to push back.
You keep using that word.
I do not think it means what you think it means.
I’m not at all confident about the response of the paper tiger in the white house in the event or an “incident.”
And "over" means "well, kinda close is you consider the entire expanse of the Pacific Ocean".
No. Navy Aviators are pilots. The P-8 has two, plus (usually) a third relief aviator. It also has two Naval Flight Officers (NFOs), an ordnanceman, and five or more sensor station operators (active and passive acoustic), plus radar and other visual sensor operators. Eighteen are now flying. The original plan was to have 118 P-8s (to replace what had been 456 P-3s in the 1970s) and several dozen Trident UAVs. The Trident may fly by 2017.
2. >>The P8 is one expression of the Obama administration's pivot to Asia, and its principle mission here is keeping a watchful eye on China.
LOL! The P-8 was a product of the Multimission Maritime Aircraft Program from 2001, and became the P-8 in 2004. Since then, 18 operational airframes have been produced. Obama has had zero involvement with or interest in it.
3. >>In 2001, a Chinese jet collided with a U.S. EP-3, the P8's predecessor,
No. The P-8's predecessor is the P-3C ASW aircraft, the craft involved in the collision. The EP-3 is an elint bird, unarmed and basically blind to the outside.
Jim needs more background in naval aviation.
What will Obozo do when the Chi-Coms shoot down one of these planes? They have previously buzzed our planes nearly causing them to crash and they can be sure that Obama will at most have a weak or tepid response.
The chinese call-up womans army is the same pop. as the U.S.
They now own at least 1/6th of mexico
imo
The same thing shrub did when China forced our plane down and sent it back in a million pieces.
Nothing
It’s important for China to continue to make progress while the current President is in, as they don’t know if the next President might actually have testicles.
If the next president is hillary, the chinese will have a 24/7 advocate in the WH... and at a very reasonable price.
Which brings up an interesting point. If the president is hillary will the president have testicles?
Dozens.
In a lockbox.
You’d have to ask Huma.
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