Board index › General Discussion › News and Current Events

American F-16 jets intercept 4 Russian warplanes near Alaska

Page 1 of 1 [ 14 posts ] 

Previous topic | Next topic

ASPartOfMe
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 25 Aug 2013
Age: 66
Gender: Male
Posts: 34,459
Location: Long Island, New York

15 Feb 2023, 4:40 pm

CBS News

Quote:
Two American F-16 warplanes intercepted four Russian aircraft near Alaska, the joint US-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said Tuesday. The "routine" intercept of the Russian planes -- which included Tu-95 bomber and Su-35 fighter aircraft -- occurred Monday, NORAD said in a statement.

"Russian aircraft remained in international airspace and did not enter American or Canadian sovereign airspace," it said, adding that such Russian activity "occurs regularly and is not seen as a threat, nor is the activity seen as provocative."

The Air Defense Identification Zone, or ADIZ, is a perimeter in which air traffic is monitored beyond the border of national airspace to provide additional reaction time in case of hostile actions.

Interceptions of Russian aircraft in the area — which is close to Russia's far eastern border — are relatively frequent.


_________________
Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity

It is Autism Acceptance Month

“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman


Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 15 Feb 2023, 4:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Lecia_Wynter
Velociraptor
Velociraptor

User avatar

Joined: 16 Dec 2022
Age: 34
Gender: Female
Posts: 411

15 Feb 2023, 4:42 pm

Maybe they were trying to escape the Russian regime. The website won't load the story.



funeralxempire
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 27 Oct 2014
Age: 39
Gender: Non-binary
Posts: 25,499
Location: Right over your left shoulder

15 Feb 2023, 8:01 pm

Lecia_Wynter wrote:
Maybe they were trying to escape the Russian regime. The website won't load the story.


Unlikely, they wouldn't leave in a group.

It's a typical patrol flight, they do more of them when tensions are high. They've been doing them for the entire time the Tu-95 has been in service.


_________________
Watching liberals try to solve societal problems without a systemic critique/class consciousness is like watching someone in the dark try to flip on the light switch, but they keep turning on the garbage disposal instead.
戦争ではなく戦争と戦う


naturalplastic
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 26 Aug 2010
Age: 69
Gender: Male
Posts: 34,134
Location: temperate zone

15 Feb 2023, 9:40 pm

Yes the TU 95 has been used much like nations used to use battleships:to "show the flag". Remember the Maine!

The TU95 "Bear Bomber" came out in the mid Fifties, its basically a poor man's B52, and it came out at about the same time as our B52, and like the Energizer Bunny, the DC3, and also like the B52, it just keeps on going and going, even after more than half of a century. Small compared to the B52 its still big compared to most of the world's aircraft. Its odd looking -with swept back wings like a jet, but with props. But its a turboprop, and not a piston prop like the bombers of WWII. Almost as fast as subsonic jets like commercial airliners, and like the B52.

Over its long life the B52 dropped thousands of tons of bombs on Indochina in the Sixties and Seventies. But oddly over virtually the same service life the TU95 was never actually used in combat, not even in the Soviet war in Afghanistan in the Eighties, until a few years ago when it was used to launch cruise missiles in Syria (its first actual combat role). Have not heard about them being deployed in the current war against Ukraine.



Lecia_Wynter
Velociraptor
Velociraptor

User avatar

Joined: 16 Dec 2022
Age: 34
Gender: Female
Posts: 411

16 Feb 2023, 2:47 pm

funeralxempire wrote:
Unlikely, they wouldn't leave in a group.


Wouldn't it be more efficient for them to all go AWOL at the same time?



funeralxempire
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 27 Oct 2014
Age: 39
Gender: Non-binary
Posts: 25,499
Location: Right over your left shoulder

16 Feb 2023, 2:54 pm

Lecia_Wynter wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
Unlikely, they wouldn't leave in a group.


Wouldn't it be more efficient for them to all go AWOL at the same time?


“The minute more than two people know a secret, it is no longer a secret.”
— Ann Landers

Which is to say, given the risks, it's unlikely one could genuinely trust their fellow airmen to not just turn them in. How likely is it that they've all become sympathetic to defection, all at once?

Generally, when Soviet era pilots defected in aircraft, they did so alone, in a single-seater.


_________________
Watching liberals try to solve societal problems without a systemic critique/class consciousness is like watching someone in the dark try to flip on the light switch, but they keep turning on the garbage disposal instead.
戦争ではなく戦争と戦う


Lecia_Wynter
Velociraptor
Velociraptor

User avatar

Joined: 16 Dec 2022
Age: 34
Gender: Female
Posts: 411

18 Feb 2023, 9:28 pm

funeralxempire wrote:
Lecia_Wynter wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
Unlikely, they wouldn't leave in a group.


Wouldn't it be more efficient for them to all go AWOL at the same time?


“The minute more than two people know a secret, it is no longer a secret.”
— Ann Landers

Which is to say, given the risks, it's unlikely one could genuinely trust their fellow airmen to not just turn them in. How likely is it that they've all become sympathetic to defection, all at once?

Generally, when Soviet era pilots defected in aircraft, they did so alone, in a single-seater.


In the Ukraine conflict I've heard stories that entire squads have gone AWOL.



funeralxempire
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 27 Oct 2014
Age: 39
Gender: Non-binary
Posts: 25,499
Location: Right over your left shoulder

18 Feb 2023, 9:33 pm

Lecia_Wynter wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
Lecia_Wynter wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
Unlikely, they wouldn't leave in a group.


Wouldn't it be more efficient for them to all go AWOL at the same time?


“The minute more than two people know a secret, it is no longer a secret.”
— Ann Landers

Which is to say, given the risks, it's unlikely one could genuinely trust their fellow airmen to not just turn them in. How likely is it that they've all become sympathetic to defection, all at once?

Generally, when Soviet era pilots defected in aircraft, they did so alone, in a single-seater.


In the Ukraine conflict I've heard stories that entire squads have gone AWOL.


Are they conscripted ground forces operating close to Ukrainian lines, or are they elite pilots?

It makes a big deal who they are because virtually no conscripts want to fight meanwhile pilots are typically well-treated volunteers. A conscripted grunt who's about to be used for cannon fodder is in a much more desperate situation than a pilot and is likely to take bigger risks, but also, they can count on the people around them having just as low of morale as they have.

If you're surrounded by comfortable, well-trained volunteers it's unlikely you'll find co-conspirators.

If you're surrounded by desperate conscripts who all equally don't want to die this week, you might have better luck finding people who will act with you on that fear of not wanting to die.


_________________
Watching liberals try to solve societal problems without a systemic critique/class consciousness is like watching someone in the dark try to flip on the light switch, but they keep turning on the garbage disposal instead.
戦争ではなく戦争と戦う


Lecia_Wynter
Velociraptor
Velociraptor

User avatar

Joined: 16 Dec 2022
Age: 34
Gender: Female
Posts: 411

18 Feb 2023, 9:42 pm

funeralxempire wrote:
Lecia_Wynter wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
Lecia_Wynter wrote:
funeralxempire wrote:
Unlikely, they wouldn't leave in a group.


Wouldn't it be more efficient for them to all go AWOL at the same time?


“The minute more than two people know a secret, it is no longer a secret.”
— Ann Landers

Which is to say, given the risks, it's unlikely one could genuinely trust their fellow airmen to not just turn them in. How likely is it that they've all become sympathetic to defection, all at once?

Generally, when Soviet era pilots defected in aircraft, they did so alone, in a single-seater.


In the Ukraine conflict I've heard stories that entire squads have gone AWOL.


Are they conscripted ground forces operating close to Ukrainian lines, or are they elite pilots?

It makes a big deal who they are because virtually no conscripts want to fight meanwhile pilots are typically well-treated volunteers. A conscripted grunt who's about to be used for cannon fodder is in a much more desperate situation than a pilot and is likely to take bigger risks, but also, they can count on the people around them having just as low of morale as they have.

If you're surrounded by comfortable, well-trained volunteers it's unlikely you'll find co-conspirators.

If you're surrounded by desperate conscripts who all equally don't want to die this week, you might have better luck finding people who will act with you on that fear of not wanting to die.


Some believe that many Russian officers are motivated by avarice. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if all of them defected if the Americans offered them lots of money.



funeralxempire
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 27 Oct 2014
Age: 39
Gender: Non-binary
Posts: 25,499
Location: Right over your left shoulder

18 Feb 2023, 9:49 pm

Lecia_Wynter wrote:
Some believe that many Russian officers are motivated by avarice. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if all of them defected if the Americans offered them lots of money.


Money has been a motive before; that's how the US got their hands on No Kum-sok's MiG 15, they offered a bounty of $100,000.

More broadly though, it's worth considering that different sorts of military personnel are differently prone to defecting/going AWOL/etc. Volunteers and forces considered elite tend to be far less likely to defect than conscripted men. People who feel no attachment to the cause tend to break long before people who believe in the cause and chose to join it.


_________________
Watching liberals try to solve societal problems without a systemic critique/class consciousness is like watching someone in the dark try to flip on the light switch, but they keep turning on the garbage disposal instead.
戦争ではなく戦争と戦う


kraftiekortie
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 4 Feb 2014
Gender: Male
Posts: 87,510
Location: Queens, NYC

19 Feb 2023, 12:57 pm

Sounds like routine military exercises.

Too much attention for a “group AWOL.”



Aspinator
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 23 Feb 2008
Gender: Male
Posts: 955
Location: AspinatorLand

19 Feb 2023, 1:19 pm

I was in the USAF in the 80s at Galena Airport, AK. It is a game both sides play. One side will send planes and (inadvertently) they will enter the territorial waters of the other side to see how long it will take the other side to respond.



naturalplastic
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 26 Aug 2010
Age: 69
Gender: Male
Posts: 34,134
Location: temperate zone

19 Feb 2023, 1:25 pm

The big plane, the TU95, has a large five to ten man crew in and of itself. The escorting fighters have their several pilots and copilots. So thats a large conspiracy to keep under wraps.

Its just standard procedure for the last seventy years. What the Russians do, and have done since Soviet times. The TU95's main mission is long range maritime surveillance. Squadrons of this sort have been intruding into NATO waters for all of those decades (British and French waters in the Atlantic, and U.S. Alaskan waters in the Bering/Pacific). And NATO fighters have to quietly 'escort' the trespassers off of the front lawn.

And Aspinator says...our side will poke their hornet's nest occasionally too.

But over that same period there have been the occasional defecting aviator. We got hold of a Mig that way in the Eighties. But thats usually just one guy defecting. One guy stealing off with one plane doesnt require an impossibly large conspiracy the way that several air crews would.



Last edited by naturalplastic on 19 Feb 2023, 4:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

funeralxempire
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 27 Oct 2014
Age: 39
Gender: Non-binary
Posts: 25,499
Location: Right over your left shoulder

19 Feb 2023, 3:37 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
We got hold of a Mig that way in the Eighties. But thats usually just one guy defecting. One guy stealing off with one plane doesnt require an impossibly large conspiracy the way that several air crews would.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defection ... or_Belenko

More details for anyone who's interested.

For what it's worth the Su-35 is also a single-seater, although there are two-seater Flankers that are primarily intended for combat as well.


_________________
Watching liberals try to solve societal problems without a systemic critique/class consciousness is like watching someone in the dark try to flip on the light switch, but they keep turning on the garbage disposal instead.
戦争ではなく戦争と戦う