Posted on 07/25/2011 6:43:11 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
Two Chinese warplanes intercepted an American spy plane over the tense Taiwan Strait last month in China’s most aggressive challenge to U.S. surveillance flights since a 2001 collision that touched off an international crisis.
According to defense officials, the intercept took place June 29. The two Chinese jets flew from a base in China to head off an Air Force U-2 spy plane over the dividing line in the 100-mile wide Taiwan Strait.
“In general, these reconnaissance flights are conducted in international airspace, as are the PRC [Chinese] intercepts, which happen fairly routinely,” said a Pentagon official familiar with the incident.
“There is no ‘repel’ aspect to them,” he said of reports from Asia that the Chinese jets had “repelled” the U-2 flight during the intercept.
A Pacific Command spokesman declined to provide details of the incident other than to say it occurred June 29 as the Air Force was conducting a routine operation in international airspace in the area of the East China Sea.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
We intercept all the time.
What the chinese did was cross an understood boundry in pursuit. . .that is a hostile act.
However, need SR-71 for flying into regions and in conditions where satellites can't “see.” Like below the weather for E/O intel. Other than E/O, SAR and other imaging works pretty good.
The US shot down a satellite in 1985 with a missile launched from an F-15 flying at 80,000 feet.
"The F-15 took off from Edwards Air Force Base, climbed to 80,000 feet (24,384 m) and vertically launched the missile at the Solwind P78-1, a US gamma ray spectroscopy satellite orbiting at 555 km (345 mi), which was launched in 1979."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-satellite_weapon
Maybe they’ll negotiate repayment: consider the credit as payment for Taiwan.
Ya know, that would make a lot of very powerful people very happy.
Way back in the day, the early 1960s, my unit in the Philippines was tasked with locating and identifying CHICOM radar stations. The U S aviators flew out of Okinawa toward mainland China, then turned south, just outside of China’s limit, having activated radar stations on the China coast; then they landed in the PI to dump film and refuel. The ChiNATs flew due east from Taiwan and penetrated China’s airspace doing the same thing. Saw some incredible photos of CHICOM soldiers outside their vans shaking their fists at the CHINATS. I think the NATS were flying RF101S (Voodoos, IIRC).
Invading Taiwan cuts out this one big trading partner and source of capital and gives the chicoms nothing in return
They will just wait -- remember the Chinese think in terms of centuries. They think that US power is going to wane further. As time passes and the chicoms become more a capitalist oligarchy (which arguably they already are), there will be less separating the two chinas and then they will plan to reunite peacefully.
Taiwan's only purpose is for China to sabre-rattle every now and then
In more concrete terms China is interested in siberia and central asia for energy.
Also, the basic military ambition of the Kai-Ching dictatorship was the same as the chicoms -- occupying Tibet etc.
I think the SR-71’s were retired over concerns about the airframes.
Any thoughts on #104?
True.
Better stated as we need an SR-71-like airframe. . .
There is or was one at the Marshall Spaceflight Center Visitor’s Center. It looked fast just sitting still. Marvelous aircraft. Probably the best overall aircraft of its kind the world has ever seen.
Two consecutive quarters of donations to FR, not to exceed the average among all givers.
***Those Chinese jets probably aren’t much more advance than 70’s era fighters***
(:) Hehe! 70’s era “never throw anything away” tin cans verses [21st century cutting edge perverted and secretive snooping eye wears] and none of these mothers http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/7b/X-wing.jpg/220px-X-wing.jpg from the Galactic Empire were scrambled from their motherships? Goes to show how meaningless these http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0b/Shenyang_F-6.jpg/220px-Shenyang_F-6.jpg rusty tin cans truly are, doesn’t it? I mean not even any F-14 or 18’s were required to roll out the welcoming mat for them...
Missiles have service ceilings too. Their little fins need air to do ant maneuvering in flight. Air is a little thin up there.
SR-71 Deactivation 1998
Apr 15, 1996 ... SR-71 Blackbird Program Closes Down 1998. ... President Clinton Kills USAF SR Program-October 1997 ... SR-71 Blackbird, a pioneer in reconnaissance aircraft, will be permanently retired from Air Force operations. ...
http://www.wvi.com/~sr71webmaster/sract~1.htm - 11k -
Everything in the world is the fault of the Bushes in the minds of some.
One day this past June I went on a Shad Fishing Trip on the Yuba River. We were under a couple of flight patterns,and some very interesting planes and unmanned stuff flew over and around all day in preparation for an Air Force air show at Beale AFB, a few miles away.
U2’s in various colors, and one that appeared to have a shorter wing span.
At least one Predator flew over, and some smaller drone types.
Slow jets, hot jets and an assortment of planes were flying over and around there.
A couple of guys saw a rather large black colored bird er plane high in the sky making circles around the area. I never saw the full outline of the plane just quick glimpses.
That was the 2nd retirement.
The first one came after years of General Larry D Welch, USAF and a few others in the Reagan admin lobbying against the Blackbird. They apparently got the funds cut by congress, and the first retirement happened Nov 1989.
Below is a great link to the history of the Blackbird’s development, history, first retirement, out of retirement and finally being killed by Clinton.
http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Documents/2011/January%202011/0111fast.pdf
“Congress and the Air Force spent a decade wrestling over the final fate of the legendary SR-71 Blackbird.”
***I was a stroke of brilliance to retire the SR-71, wasn’t it?***
I’m no stroke of design expert but the SR-71 and the U-2, my opinion, is soviet era and likely targeted against Warsaw Pack movements hence not suitable for post Soviet era Asia Pacific intelligence gathering operations. This job, my opinion, is now covertly assigned to the long since been speculated Aurora or even stealthier program.
*** and now get harassed by Chinese mosquitoes ***
Little do we know it but these close encounters of the 6th kind (Chinese mosquitoes verses US ships or air crafts) are rather routine though never ever been publicized.
Example: During the last Taiwan Straight incident where Clinton dispatched the Nimitz and a sister ship to the region to psychologically intimidate the ChiComs, the ChiComs [claimed] that the then Deng Xiao-Ping ordered the Nimitz and her sister ship shadowed.
J-7E’s (China’s latest then), it was suggested, were dispatched to shadow the Nimitz and her sister ship. The claim however went as far as to have suggested that three of the J-7’s actually buzzed/zipped across the mast of the Nimitz and her sister ship but cools heads persisted.
MY speculation of what likely happened is his: throughout the incident, the two opposing forces likely stared one another squarely in the eye ball quite for real for a time. Nothing much happened of course because none the parties involved wanted a real deal Sino-US international incident. The missile tests ran its course, so did the stand off.
Last I saw, there was one on a pedestal in front of the San Diego Aerospace Museum in Balboa Park.
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