Posted on 07/20/2007 11:27:11 AM PDT by lizol
Russian bombers test UK patience again
By Wojciech Moskwa in Oslo
July 20, 2007 09:59pm
TWO Russian Tu-95 bombers made unusually long sorties over the North Sea yesterday, forcing both Norway and Britain to scramble fighter jets to follow the Russian planes, Norway's armed forces said.
The Russian bombers stayed in international air space during their flight, which took them as far south as the region between Norway's Stavanger and Aberdeen in Scotland - centres of the North Sea oil industry.
The incident, the latest of several such sorties in past days, occurred during a period of heightened diplomatic tensions between Russia and Britain over Moscow's refusal to extradite a murder suspect.
“It's a long time since they (Russian bombers) have been that far south,” John Inge Oegland, spokesman for Norway's armed forces, told Reuters.
"I would say that is rather unusual.
“Since they were so far south, the RAF (Britain's Royal Air Force) followed the same procedure and went up to identify them."
When Russian military planes approach Norwegian air space, Norway scrambles fighters to meet and follow them.
Russia's air force commander said this week that such sorties were training flights for the long-range bombers.
“The pilots flew on routes used for international flights,” Colonel Yuri Pomelov, an information officer for the Russian military, said.
"We strictly followed international agreements on the use of airspace."
Cold War
Norway said it was not unusual for Russian military planes to fly over international waters across the Barents Sea and then either turn south into the Norwegian Sea or continue flying west over the Atlantic, before turning around.
Oegland said the apparent increase in Russian sorties along Norwegian air space follows a major exercise by Russia's Northern Fleet in the Russian Barents Sea.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
It’s going to be a loooooong summer.
>>Don’t believe everything you read in the news.
Less than half, would be my take on things.
Any time someone I know, or I, has “insider” knowledge about an event, we always without fail come away amazed at how poor the reporting is, and how much they got wrong. It has happened enough that I now assume this is the case on everything I see.
Next will tell everyone that Putin's Kremlin does not suppy weapons to Iran & Syria.
US slams Russia over terror fight freeze
Buzzed by the bear - RAF tornados scramble to meet Russian intruders
Are you for real? I take it that you are aware of the Russian out of area flights since their re-activation in the late 1990s?
The only time that they haven’t been pre-announced was immediately after the Kosovo crisis.
Ever since then they have been pre-announced. The long range out of area flights normally take part at the end of an exercise involving strategic forces. The Russians were conducting those routing exercises only last week. The Russians last year conducted similar long range out of area heavy bomber flights last year into the US&Canadian ADIZ.
All those flights were conducted in international airspace. You do realise that they would have to have broken the 12 mile limit to actually have been outside of international airspace?
These are basic facts. The Russians still maintain laison offices with offices in Brussels and Moscow. Every major military exercise involving strategic forces is announced as part of the deconfliction. The Russians also do the same for their ballistic missile tests with a time-window. The out of area flights are announced with a similar time window. Nobody wants to make a mistake with such strategic assets.
The Russian strategic aviation exercises are monitored. Over the years it has been routine for them to end their exercises with such long range out of area flights. They have been expected ever since their re-emergence in the late 1990’s.
I’ve just retired from the RAF. Although these flights are never in the numbers as during the Cold War, they are to be expected at the end of an exercise.
Thanks for the ping.
Not so easy,if your targets are carrying cruise missiles with a range in excess of a thousand kms.
And the pilots carry sabers.
What a joke.
“All those flights were conducted in international airspace”
The article clearly states that the bombers entered british airspace “briefly”.
The brits should have shot it down as the communists have shot down passenger flight in the past.
And never became operational.
No need to get too excited, U-2s are subsonic; max speed at altitude being ~450 KIAS.
Never became operational because it was cancelled by a short-sighted government. It was never produced past the prototype stage.
The Tu-95 Bear is an old plane. When near Canadian airspace, a Canadian detail follows; when it reaches American airspace our aircraft take over. The same throughout the world.
Jimmy Carter canceled the B1-A and probably gave the USSR the pans to promote world peace.
I know, but the RCAF hasn’t flown CF-101s in years...
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