From the article:
“In March two Russian Su-27 aircraft attacked a US Reaper drone and dumped fuel on the drone over the Black Sea.”
I’ve been waiting for a post to make an observation; I look at Flightradar24 periodically every day. I saw the drones over the Black Sea, very regularly. They don’t do that anymore. I have not seen one over the Black Sea since that one went down. They stay over Romania along the coast. In other words, the Russians won that one.
Alternately, they just turned off ADS-B. They could avoid civilian air routes and look for other aircraft's ADS-B. Broadcasting their positions was just a courtesy to the Russians. Eff 'em.
Flightradar24 can only track aircraft that use ADS-B and/or Mode S transponders and that can be tracked via multilateration.
Military aircraft including drones typically fly MARSA without a transponder.
Uhm... I heard they shut off the public transponder reports.
I notice a lot fewer US military aircraft over the past 6 weeks compared to earlier. Either that or the Europeans are flying more. Lots of RAF, Armee d’Air, Luftwaffe even Italian, Spanish and Belgian Air Component traffic.
Maybe we’re switching to all electric aircraft?