[Jacquerie]

Chill. It is called international airspace. They can fly where they wish. No dereliction involved unless they weren’t tailed by our guys.

[Gondring]

I think that the knee-jerkers here would get pretty upset if our planes were shot down as they do the same thing to others’ ships.

[Drew68]

Chill. It is called international airspace. They can fly where they wish. No dereliction involved unless they weren’t tailed by our guys.

Exactly. Iranian P-3s fly over our carriers frequently day in the Persian Gulf. I've been there and seen it myself. It is as much their airspace as it is ours and if Iran had their navy patrolling in international waters off the coast of New York we'd be doing the same thing.

Anyways, the Iranian patrols break the monotony of boring days and gives our F/A-18 pilots some practice at interception.

All the knuckle-draggers screaming to "SHOOT THEM OUT OF THE SKY!!!" don't have clue what they're talking about.

[Ronin]

As I understand it, any aircraft carrier operating in international waters owns airspace out to five kilometers from the ship during flight operations.

I remember Connie was buzzed by a May ASW bird during the late 1970s, but they were careful not to fly directly over the flight deck. That’s definitely a finger in the eye move.

[sam_paine]

This is sickening and disgusting. To allow a TU-95 to get this close is bordering on derelect IMHO.

JeffHead, this really demonstrates and irrational ignorance on your part.

What are they going to do, shoot down Ivan during flyover in international airspace if he doesn't change course? They have standoff weapons that could hit us from far out. Does that mean you think we should splash them as soon as they are even within weapons range?

This was an exposition and empty saber rattling, and sounds like they were escorted on their merry way and WWIII did not begin on that day. A good day, IMHO.