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Russian nuclear bombers relive Soviet glory
AFP ^ | September 14, 2008

Posted on 09/14/2008 9:59:36 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe

The Soviet glory days are back at this nuclear bomber base in southern Russia: the US is none too popular and the crews say they are ready to fly anywhere in the world at a moment's notice.

"It's like the good old days," Oleg Mikhailishchin, a pilot in camouflage uniform, told reporters during a rare visit by foreign media to the Engels base last month, before the war with Georgia further raised tensions with the West. More than 20 Tu-160 and Tu-95 bombers could be seen on the runway near the Volga River at this once top-secret base, where the two Tu-160 "White Swan" planes that landed in Venezuela on Wednesday flew from.

Russia is also dispatching a nuclear cruiser and other warships and planes to the Caribbean for the joint exercises with Venezuela, seen as a direct rebuff to the United States in the first such deployment since the Cold War.

Mikhailishchin spoke in a cafeteria dominated by a red Soviet emblem and a portrait of World War II commander Georgy Zhukov. The base was filled with a mixture of hi-tech equipment and crumbling Soviet-era infrastructure.

Vladimir Putin, then Russia's president and now the prime minister, gave the order in August 2007 for the Russian air force to resume long-range bomber patrols -- just like in the Cold War -- after a lull of 15 years.

The flights are a sign of Russia's new-found confidence on the world stage and have spread fear in Western capitals. For the Engels base, they have restored a sense of pride that was all but lost after the Soviet collapse.

"It's getting better and better," said Alexander Khaberov, a 36-year-old wing commander, after returning from a 12-hour mission across the North Atlantic during which he was intercepted by British and Norwegian fighter jets.

Khaberov flew a "White Swan," named after its Concorde-like sleek shape.

"It's nice to feel needed," said Gennady Stekachyov, 39, a flight commander, before roaring off the five-kilometre runway on exercises within Russia on a Tu-95 bomber, a Cold War icon better known by its NATO codename "Bear".

It was a Tu-95, a plane first developed in the 1950s, that dropped the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated in the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in northern Russia in 1961. The Tu-160 began to be built in the 1980s.

Asked about a newspaper report that the nuclear bombers could be based in Cuba in response to US plans to base a missile defence system in Eastern Europe, Stekachyov said: "We wouldn't have any problems flying to Cuba.

"If we're told to fly there and base ourselves there, then we'll do it.... Everything that's in the interests of our state is right," said Stekachyov, who graduated from an air force academy in Soviet times.

"I was here during the good times, then there was a period of stagnation," he said, remembering with bitterness the 1990s, when the base destroyed part of its fleet under a disarmament deal with the United States.

"All glory to the Americans," sneered Vladimir Dyakov, an officer at the base. Sergei Voronov, a former bomber pilot who now manages the local flight museum, said: "We gave in. It was hurtful for all our compatriots."

Yeltsin's deals with the United States are a painful memory, making Putin's role in reviving long-range bomber patrols all the more heroic. Putin's flight on a Tu-160 bomber in 2005 is remembered fondly at the Engels base.

His note in a guest book is repeated like a mantra: "Precise, efficient, beautiful." While things are looking up, however, pilots still complain their salaries of around 1,000 dollars (719 euros) a month are disappointing.

Putin "revalued the role of long-range aviation," Dmitry Kostyunin, deputy commander of the long-range bomber division based in Engels told reporters.

But Kostyunin also emphasised that the resumption of bomber patrols was not about Russian muscle-flexing but about global "friendship."

When Russian bomber pilots are intercepted by fighter jets in the air, the feeling is one of camaraderie, he said. "I think the fighter jets are also happy. The young pilots can see our planes, see how beautiful they are."

His comments contrasted with the numerous complaints from Western countries since the resumption of Russian bomber patrols, including in February this year when Japan accused the Russian bombers of violating its airspace.

Kostyunin, who once piloted long-range bombers in the Baltic states during the Cold War, said: "It is a symbol of power but also a symbol of goodwill... The more you know about us, the more you'll love and respect us."


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Russia
KEYWORDS: coldwar2; geopolitics; latinamerica; russia; tu160; venezuela
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1 posted on 09/14/2008 9:59:37 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
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To: Tailgunner Joe

Hmmmm...., Let’s see how 10 Russian fighters would fare against a single F-22 Raptor. I’ve got $10.000 I’ll wager on the outcome....


2 posted on 09/14/2008 10:02:36 PM PDT by freebilly
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To: Tailgunner Joe
"I think the fighter jets are also happy. The young pilots can see our planes, see how beautiful they are."

LOL ....in a museum artifact kind of way.

3 posted on 09/14/2008 10:31:31 PM PDT by spetznaz (Nuclear-tipped Ballistic Missiles: The Ultimate Phallic Symbol)
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To: Tailgunner Joe

The good ole days of bread lines, shared apartments, and sailors earning $10 a month.


4 posted on 09/14/2008 10:32:18 PM PDT by Citizen Soldier (Made in USA and proud of it.)
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To: Tailgunner Joe
"the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the [20th] century" -Russian leader Vladimir Putin on the collapse of the Soviet Union...
"World democratic opinion has yet to realize the alarming implications of President Vladimir Putin's State of the Union speech on April 25, 2005, in which he said that the collapse of the Soviet Union represented the 'greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.'
http://www.hooverdigest.org/053/beichman.html


5 posted on 09/14/2008 10:41:47 PM PDT by ETL (Smoking gun evidence on ALL the ObamaRat-commie connections at my newly revised FR Home page)
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To: freebilly
Depends on fighter, but more modern ones would give you a rude and expensive surprise. They would take casualties, heavy casualties, but in the end the Raptor would be simply overwhelmed.

F-22 is the best fighter on planet, agreed. It's also the most expensive and it is not magic. And the other side is far more willing to accept casualties than USA.
6 posted on 09/14/2008 10:43:15 PM PDT by MirrorField (Just an opinion from atheist, minarchist and small-l libertarian.)
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To: Tailgunner Joe
send a jet version of the predator with a couple of missiles on it to fly escort; or maybe cruise missiles.

Could someone provide a pic please!

7 posted on 09/14/2008 10:56:48 PM PDT by Herakles (Diversity is code word for anti-white racism)
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To: MirrorField

No, the F-22 isn’t magic, but there’s no other fighter in the world, in production, that can even remotely measure up to its capabilities. Now if the Russians want to spend billions upon billions developing a stealth version of the SU-37 then there just might be a fighter that can stack up against the Raptor....


8 posted on 09/14/2008 11:00:56 PM PDT by freebilly
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To: MirrorField

read up on the raptor’s capabilities. you may wish to retract your statenents...


9 posted on 09/14/2008 11:25:22 PM PDT by steel_resolve (We are living in the post-rational world where being a moron is an asset)
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To: MirrorField
The Russians don't have the number of aircraft to do that, nor the aircrews, training, maintenance, spare parts, secure command and control.

Other than that, everything should be fine.

10 posted on 09/15/2008 12:31:25 AM PDT by Leisler
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To: freebilly
Sounds like you drink way too much zoomie kool-aid.


11 posted on 09/15/2008 4:15:24 AM PDT by A.A. Cunningham
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To: freebilly

Some benny arnold will just sell of give the F-22s plans to the russians or chi-coms someday.


12 posted on 09/15/2008 4:30:33 AM PDT by Joe Boucher (An enemy of Islam)
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To: Tailgunner Joe
How quaint. The Russian KGB moron is feeling his oil money oats. Staging strategic bombers on an airfield and inviting the public for tours only serves to puff up the ego's of his own nationalists. Those airplanes have a zero survivability against even a Vietnam era air defense. This has to be a diversion away from his redeployment of ICBMs. Meanwhile, Osama is handily planning to dismantle our missile shield.
13 posted on 09/15/2008 4:34:37 AM PDT by bitterohiogunclinger
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To: A.A. Cunningham; Pukin Dog

I thought Pukin Dog debunked that photo?

Is he still gone?


14 posted on 09/15/2008 7:27:59 AM PDT by Lx (Do you like it, do you like it. Scott? I call it Mr. and Mrs. Tennerman chili.)
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To: GauchoUSA
There it is! Four days late and on the wrong thread, but there it is.
15 posted on 09/15/2008 8:56:59 AM PDT by Yo-Yo
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To: MirrorField

Russia also has the PAK-FA and Plasma Stealth capability, and an ability to detect stealth. That could give the F-22 some problems. However, even with stealth removed from the equasion, the F-22 can outclass any other aircraft (even PAK-FA and J-XX).


16 posted on 09/15/2008 5:54:50 PM PDT by Thunder90
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To: freebilly

That is why the Russians are developing the PAK-FA fighter.


17 posted on 09/16/2008 4:06:41 PM PDT by Tommyjo
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To: bitterohiogunclinger

The Tu-160 is a stand-off nuclear ALCM carrier. Think B-52H used in the ALCM role. They don’t require to penetrate deep into airspace to achieve their aims. The Russians have the longest ranged ALCMs. The Tu-160s are part of the Russian nuclear triad the same as heavy strategic bombers are in the U.S. It is the speed and range of the Tu-160 that makes it a potent threat.


18 posted on 09/16/2008 4:12:56 PM PDT by Tommyjo
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To: Tommyjo

Yeah, you’re right, but so far as I know, the PAK-FA hasn’t even begun flight testing. Flight testing can take several years before full production starts. By the time Russia starts full scale production of the PAK-FA the US (hopefully) will have started working on a Gen 6 fighter.


19 posted on 09/16/2008 8:20:19 PM PDT by freebilly
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To: freebilly

There will be late model heavily upgraded F-22 Raptors in the skies by the time the first Su-50 PAK FA is commissioned in the VVS.

And the bomber that can match the performance of the Tu-160 is the proposed B-1R Lancer, nicknamed “Boner” as in B-One-R.


20 posted on 03/17/2009 3:21:00 AM PDT by myknowledge (Nothing beats Australia's F-22EMA Raptor)
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