News Canadian jets intercept Russian bombers

[Urwumpe]

How often the Tu-160's get intercepted this way, BTW?

Are they even flying that far? AFAIR, their operations are very expensive and they are not used as maritime patrol aircraft like the Tu-95.

 

[ddom2006]

Putin authorised these cold-war long-range drills to start again this year. They'd been stopped for years due to the expense of the drills... but you know Putin...

 

[Urwumpe]

Putin authorised these cold-war long-range drills to start again this year. They'd been stopped for years due to the expense of the drills... but you know Putin...

Yeah, he would love being shown riding a Tu-160 with bare naked chest and tranquilize tigers with it.

 

[SiberianTiger]

Putin authorised these cold-war long-range drills to start again this year. They'd been stopped for years due to the expense of the drills... but you know Putin...

So it looks like we pay for your fun. Without those drills, British, Canadian, Norwergian, Japanese etc. interpetor pilots would be bored to death.

And I think there are really not many reports on intercepted Tu-160 just because they don't fly very often. At least, there are so few of them that each one has got a proper name and departing on a mission makes headlines in newspapers.

 

[Turbinator]

This Google Map link is centred on where the plane was intercepted. And the Point A on the map is the base where the jets intercepted them from.
http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&sour...147519,-51.020508&spn=16.007289,46.538086&z=5

This happens a few times a year, however it only makes national headlines when the government feels like releasing the news. The major reason behind this is the Northwest Passage, as the Arctic ice melts over the next 10 years, a clean path for ships will be made straight trough the Canadian Arctic, not to mention that the area is the richest deposit of Oil and Natural Gas left in the world. This is all untapped waiting to be exploited, and the beauty and the cleanliness of the Arctic pissed on. Now Russia is claiming this region as theirs, even tough it is covered under Canada's sovereign territory. Russia, just last year, went and planted an underwater flag. Right under the passage, inside Canadian borders.

 

[Notebook]

Tenous link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10793639

Mr Prentice said the discovery of the Investigator supported Canada's historical claim to the region, which the country inherited when it gained independence from Britain.
The issue of sovereignty has become increasingly important to Canada as the melting of arctic ice has increased interest in marine shipping through the Northwest Passage.

Suppose we'll be seeing a lot more of this in the future?

N.

 

[Sunhillow]

Or a way to make nice photographs for the tabloids and show how primitive Russian bombers are escorted by western high-tech products.

We should maybe prepare a warbird from WW2 or Korea and send it to the next intruder for the fun of it and give it a fair chance.

I wouldn't call the Tu-95 primitive. It is the same generation as the B52 and despite its turboprop motors is not much slower than this, but consumes less kerosine.
Putin riding on an engine nacelle behind the counter-rotating hairblower would be very impressive IMO :tiphat:

 

[Notebook]

Not quite Putin on a nacelle...

N.

 

[Andy44]

The airframe of the Bear is not primitive; it's a very mature design and does the job it was built for. The engines may be getting a bit old in design, and of course the avionics can always be upgraded as the years go by. This is true of many old aircraft, especially the large subsonic designs, and explains why the C-130 and B-52 are still in service after 50 years, and the C-130 is still in production.

Heck, some commercial operators are still using the Douglas DC-3!

 

[Solar424]

Had this happened 50 years ago, we'd all be in a bunker.

 

[SiberianTiger]

The major reason behind this is the Northwest Passage, as the Arctic ice melts over the next 10 years, a clean path for ships will be made straight trough the Canadian Arctic, not to mention that the area is the richest deposit of Oil and Natural Gas left in the world. This is all untapped waiting to be exploited, and the beauty and the cleanliness of the Arctic pissed on. Now Russia is claiming this region as theirs, even tough it is covered under Canada's sovereign territory. Russia, just last year, went and planted an underwater flag. Right under the passage, inside Canadian borders.

:blink: Any source proving that the flag was planted last year and in the area of the Northwest Passage, please? I'm only informed of the flag made of Titanium planted on August 2, 2007 in the spot of the seabed right under the North Pole. This one:

Also, in my understanding, the Nortwest Passage should be something like is drawn on this map:

Why do you assume Russia pretends on any piece of the pictured territory? From my information, the disputed area is what's hatched red on the following map:

So you can see Russia lays no claim on any seabed on the "opposite side" of the ocean with relation to the North Pole. I can agree it may be disputable if creeping someone's claims out of the 200-mile zone from the closest firm land is just, but that's a job of politicians and lawyers to make deals around slippery matters.

It's also not quite clear how flying a Tu-95 over Labrador (can't confirm the location from any independent source, though) can be connected with whatever political process around the area thousands of kilometres away from this spot.

It's sad to see, however, how greediness and race for profit knock nations together once again.

---------- Post added at 03:03 ---------- Previous post was at 02:56 ----------

The engines may be getting a bit old in design, and of course the avionics can always be upgraded as the years go by. This is true of many old aircraft, especially the large subsonic designs, and explains why the C-130 and B-52 are still in service after 50 years, and the C-130 is still in production.

True, and for precision strikes in conditions when there's no long range anti-aircraft activity, it's just as good as supersonic planes - or maybe even better due to low fuel consumption and ability to stand by for long times. So it's kind of a Russian equivalent for strike UAV's, but with inferior observation capabilities.

 

[Andy44]

Had this happened 50 years ago, we'd all be in a bunker.

No, actually this did happen 50 years ago, many times. Most of the time it was never even reported. When I was growing up in the 80s it happened all the time. Lots of photos of Bears escorted by Phantoms.

Back in the 50s, in fact, when Curtis LeMay was in command of [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Air_Command"]SAC[/ame], US bomber crews were flying practice bomb runs over real Soviet targets, in violation of President Eisenhower's orders! (LeMay was, to me, the scariest nuclear general in history so far.) The idea was to rattle the Soviet air force by showing them how powerless they were to stop the USAF, I suppose, but it shows you how stupid and reckless this business was, and of course the public didn't find out about this until long after.

The Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 was really the only time people really thought the cork was going to pop, but it was far from the only time that people were only a few button-presses away from being anihilated. (And LeMay wanted to launch a full scale nuclear attack, too.)

But a recon plane intruding into airspace was a common thing and nobody really got spun up over it.

 

[Izack]

Someone order some Putin?

 

[jedidia]

Somehow this is starting to sound abit like the pre-history of Fallout, except with russia instead of china...:blink:

I sure hope the US won't dig out their old plans for invading Canada again.

 

[orbitingpluto]

Someone order some Putin?

Does anyone know what the heck is he in?

Somehow this is starting to sound abit like the pre-history of Fallout, except with russia instead of china...:blink:

The only really fake thing in Fallout is the wacky '50s stuff and the vaults. Thank the it never turned out that way.

 

[Urwumpe]

Does anyone know what the heck is he in?

Tu-160 Blackjack according to the file name of the image.

 

[Mantis]

This Google Map link is centred on where the plane was intercepted. And the Point A on the map is the base where the jets intercepted them from.
http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&sour...147519,-51.020508&spn=16.007289,46.538086&z=5

This happens a few times a year, however it only makes national headlines when the government feels like releasing the news. The major reason behind this is the Northwest Passage, as the Arctic ice melts over the next 10 years, a clean path for ships will be made straight trough the Canadian Arctic, not to mention that the area is the richest deposit of Oil and Natural Gas left in the world. This is all untapped waiting to be exploited, and the beauty and the cleanliness of the Arctic pissed on. Now Russia is claiming this region as theirs, even tough it is covered under Canada's sovereign territory. Russia, just last year, went and planted an underwater flag. Right under the passage, inside Canadian borders.

Actually, the flag was in international waters right at the north pole.

---------- Post added at 09:50 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:45 AM ----------

Tenous link:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-10793639



Suppose we'll be seeing a lot more of this in the future?

N.

Absolutely. The Northwest Passage is clearly Canadian soverign territory - falling well within our 200 km economic exclusion zones around our northern islands. Some countries, notably the United States dispute that but the International Law of the Sea is very clear on the matter. Our government intends to protect the northwest passage and have full control over who passes through it.

 

[RisingFury]

Had this happened 50 years ago, we'd all be in a bunker.

Glenn Beck's good old times :lol:

 

[ddom2006]

So it looks like we pay for your fun. Without those drills, British, Canadian, Norwergian, Japanese etc. interpetor pilots would be bored to death.

I hate to disappoint you, but we fly regular patrols of our airspace as per standard operation, sorry :thumbup:.

As for Russia paying for our fun... It's not cheap to fly many jet fighters for hours on end, the Eurofighter and eventually the F-35 are no exceptions to this...

 

[pattersoncr]

Absolutely. The Northwest Passage is clearly Canadian soverign territory - falling well within our 200 km economic exclusion zones around our northern islands. Some countries, notably the United States dispute that but the International Law of the Sea is very clear on the matter. Our government intends to protect the northwest passage and have full control over who passes through it.

Not so fast.
The Law of the Sea is quite clear that ships are allowed to freely pass through another nation's waters in order to access international waters on the far side. It's called [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_passage"]Transit Passage[/ame].