Yep.
Posted on 01/09/2010 5:46:54 AM PST by Brilliant
President Hugo Chávez said he ordered two F-16 jets to intercept a U.S. military plane that twice violated Venezuelan airspace on Friday in what he called the latest provocation in the South American nation's skies.
Brandishing a photo of the plane, which he described as a P-3, Mr. Chávez said the overflight was the latest incursion in Venezuelan skies by the U.S. military from its bases on the Netherlands' Caribbean islands and from neighboring Colombia.
There was no immediate response from the U.S. Defense Department or the White House...
Mr. Chávez said the F-16s escorted the U.S. plane away after two incursions lasting 15 and 19 minutes each.
The perceived threat of U.S. intervention has become a central element of Mr. Chávez's political discourse and a rallying cry for his supporters.
Foes say the president is hyping the idea of a foreign threat to distract Venezuelans from domestic problems such as a recession and inadequate public services. Mr. Chávez surprised the diplomatic world in December when he accused the Netherlands of abetting potential offensive action against his government by granting U.S. troops access to its islands close to Venezuela.
The Dutch government says the U.S. presence is only for counternarcotics and surveillance operations over Caribbean smuggling routes.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
0bama immediately dispatched senior diplomats to Venezuela to apologize for violating their airspace.
Don’t we have the equivalent of “On-Star” for any F16’s that Chavez might own? :-)
Yep.
Photo of the alleged interception or it did not happen......
Scrambled two F-16’s? Man that’s gotta suck to have to rely on US hardware for your defense. From the US. Chavez is the latest usful idiot holding down the fort in some outback locale for the US. Last guy as dumb as this one was Saddam.
If people don't know what technology is then they won't know what SONAR is either. Regardless of the intent, it's still wrong. That's why we try and seize the opportunity when it presents itself to correctly educate people, not confuse them. SONAR isn't MAD.
Today I think the only thing they do is drug interdiction patrol,
That news would come as a surprise to the P-3 crews in Afghanistan, Iraq, et al who aren't flying drug interdiction missions. The P-3 is still a fine ASW/SIGINT platform.
the P-3 airframe is basically a Lockheed Electra 188 last built in I think the 1960s.
The Electra only had a four year production run. P-3 production spanned 38 years and ended in 2000.
I think the reference in the article to the P-3 is like references in the MSM to ‘assault guns’.
To Chavez, and the reporters, a P-3 is any plane that has cameras and no defensive equipment.
Against other fighters, or even against ground targets, but against a 4 engine prop job? Not so much.
The visual is not quite accurate. Obama is the 90-lb weakling on the beach, throwing sand in his own face to spare Chavez the aggravation.
All the P-3s have radar domes, just on the underside of the forward fuselage, not in a "canoe" above the fuselage. I used to work for the company that built the radar in that underside radome. I worked with some the engineers on a project related to an upgrade for it. Even went along on data collection flights, on a company owned CV-580.
That mountain is very familiar!
Such as? (Other than the Global Hawk, and other such large UAVs, which are still not so great for the EP-3E's main mission. ) The Air Force uses C-135 variants for the mission, but that is not exactly a spring chicken airframe either.
The same with Obama.
Oh, I wasn’t saying the P-3 was a match, just that Chavez doesn’t have many top-flight planes or pilots.
I've only seen it once, way back in 66.
Only the top was sticking out of the cloud cover.
Tell me about it. Back in the day there was an unauthorized patch worn by many KC-135 crewmen that said KC-135 MIG BAIT.
Guy I work with was an AWACS weapons controller. Said they thought about painting a yellow stripe on the top, because SOP was to run away when they spotted incoming enemy fighters, once it appeared that their escorts and the other fighters they were controlling might not stop the MiGs. They operated well behind the FEBA too.
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