Lightning

F-86 Sabre

Anyone happen to know what pod some of the Strike Eagles are carrying on their centerline?

It will be a Goodrich DB-110 reconnaissance pod.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/royal-saudi-air-force-selects-goodrich-db-110-airborne-reconnaissance-systems-161888615.html

http://www.arabic-military.com/t91000-topic

Geoff,

See following. The guy has been doing it for years.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Sorcha_Faal

The stories are fabrications that even many die-hard conspiracy theorists won’t touch.

He/She can’t help themselves. Even the visit of the US carrier to the UK he/she has made into a ludicrous story. They are designed to get hits on websites and the YT Channels that host them.

http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1853.htm

Even the recent Germanwings tragedy has been manipulated by this very sad and sick person. He/She thinks that the UK operate B-1B Lancers.

http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1852.htm

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread304918/pg1

I understand your skepticism, but the first question is: has it happens before ? Did witnesses pop-up with such claims in a similar scenario ?

C’mon there had been Bear around the British island and people playing golf there since years…

And by the way, there might have been two planes, one low and a high one to suck-up the QRA away from the simulated strike element*.

What would be the goal of Putin if such is true? Make sure that the RAF keep a consequent part of their fighter squadrons at home in case of a major incident.

This is serious stuff.

*A thumbs-up to the pair of Typhoon pilots – it’s hard to impress a massive airplane flown by determined ppl with a nimble aircraft – RAF might have a fresh look at their tactics – it’s not like Rugby wasn’t invented there

Surely you can see how these eye-witnesses jumped to the wrong conclusions? The same happened in regards to the Tu-95 English Channel mission on the 28th January 2015.
Eye witnesses the day before noted two F-15s from RAF Lakenheath in the area of Bournemouth and after the story broke assumed that the F-15s were scrambled to intercept the Tu-95s. This was the day before the Tu-95 mission but that didn’t stop the media and eye-witnesses assuming that the US aircraft were involved. The F-15s were simply conducting practice approaches to
Bournemouth airport but people jumped to the wrong conclusions. The same for the incident on the 18th February involving people this time with poor aircraft recognition skills witnessing routine and completely unconnected mil aircraft movements. Take into consideration that these “Tu-95 over Cornwall” eye-witnesses were completely outside of the actual QRA timeline.

Fighter jets scrambled to intercept two Russian bombers off Dorset coast

BRITISH and American fighter jets were scrambled over Dorset to intercept two Russian bombers as they flew south of the Dorset coast, it’s claimed.

Yesterday it was reported that a pair of USAF F15 Eagles had been spotted flying low over the East Dorset coastline at around 2pm on Tuesday.

http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/archive/2015/01/29/11757829.Fighter_jets_scrambled_to_intercept_two_Russian_bombers_off_Dorset_coast/

http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/11752208.Low_flying_F_15_Eagle_jets_surprise_residents_in_Bournemouth_and_Poole/

A QRA scramble does not go unnoticed in the UK. There are far too many aircraft enthusiasts/photographers at RAF Coningsby along with radio enthusiasts monitoring VHF/UHF to miss such
activity. The Golfer eye-witness is claiming that he saw two Typhoons escorting the aircraft with a time of 10:50am. The QRA Typhoon scramble for this incident was at approximately 4:30pm with the Voyager QRA tanker scramble noted on Flight Radar 24 at 2:35pm. Radio enthusiasts in the UK were also monitoring the QRA comms. The Voyager tanker was obviously scrambled to support a combination of QRA North at RAF Lossiemouth along with QRA South at RAF Coningsby. Once the two Tu-95s were noted heading for the UK FIR off Cornwall the two Typhoons were
scrambled at approx 4:30pm from RAF Coningsby, Lincolnshire.

Link to image of the two Typhoons scrambling from RAF Coningsby at approx 4:30pm.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B-TIqHGIIAA3AkZ.jpg:large

11Sqn hastily depart on a QRA Launch with Typhoons ZJ935/DJ c/s”G3P31″ & ZJ939/DX c/s”G3P32″ 18/02/15

https://twitter.com/TheMyatts

UK radio enthusiasts noted the comms from the Typhoons relaying the Bears as registrations Lead aircraft RF-94130 (24 Red) and Second aircraft RF-94116 (28 Red)

https://planesandstuff.wordpress.com/2015/02/20/bear-hunting-part-two/

The timeline of the actual Tu-95 flights is further confirmed by the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) as between 3pm and 7pm.

The Irish authority said that the two Russian aircraft were flying with their transponders switched off — devices that help aircraft to be identified by air traffic control radars.
“One aircraft’s departure from Dublin was delayed due to the activity of the Russian military aircraft in UK controlled airspace,” the IAA said in a statement.
“The routing of one en route aircraft was changed to ensure that its track was sufficiently separated from the track of the two Russian military aircraft,” it added.
The diverted and delayed planes were commercial jets “carrying hundreds of people”, reports suggested. However, the IAA sad there had been “no safety impact to civilian traffic in Irish controlled airspace”. The aircraft did not enter Irish sovereign airspace, but flew in Irish controlled airspace within 25 nautical miles (46.3 km) of the Irish coast between 1500 GMT and 1900 GMT, according to the authority.

http://www.sundayworld.com/news/russian-bombers-strayed-into-irish-airspace-disrupting-flights

[QUOTE=Cherry Ripe;2204795]

The real question is why the MoD is so keen play-up these routine missions and why the RAF keeps wasting money ‘intercepting’ them, when all they do is tag alongside the Bears and burn fuel. Ah yes, there’s a UK Strategic Defence Review due this year…

It is standard NATO Air Policing policy. The recent spate of missions are more than routine. That was highlighted on the 28th January with the flight half way up the English Channel. This was an area that wasn’t exploited by the Russians even during the height of the Cold War. The consequence was disruption to commercial aviation for both Eire and the UK. What is the alternative here when it is standard NATO policy combined with the disruption and nuisance to extremely busy commercial air routes? Under those circumstances it certainly isn’t a waste of money intercepting them and providing assistance to civilian ATC. The RAF in these recent missions were also providing support to Eire and their ATC control zones as the Tu-95s flew down the west coast of Eire. IMHO it would be pure negligence if the Tu-95s were not intercepted and monitored by fighters in these circumstance. Why take the risk and not shadow them?

Both Eire and UK aviation authorities want some answers from the Russians and are going through the ICAO. The Russian Ambassador wasn’t summoned in the UK for any potential defence threat but purely for the disruption the flights caused to commercial aviation.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/0130/676779-airspace/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/defence/11378119/UK-summons-Russian-ambassador-after-dangerous-bombers-disrupt-civil-aircraft.html

See http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/feb/19/russian-bomber-flew-inland-cornwall-uk-airspace-witness

Regards

Good grief. Is it any wonder the Guardian is laughed at! That women is in need of an aircraft recognition book. The two Tu-95MS Bear H’s were identified by the QRA RAF Typhoons as RF-94130 and RF-94116 and no they didn’t come inside the 12nm limit.

Some HF Voice radio recordings from one of the Tu-95MS. The HF Voice and Morse bomber/tanker net had been active since 0700 GMT and provided radio enthusiasts with some interesting activity.

https://planesandstuff.wordpress.com/2015/02/20/bear-hunting-part-two/

Radio op station on the Tu-95MS Bear H at following link. The radios are set up with the Summer period HF Voice frequency of 8909 Kilohertz. Note the Morse Key in the corner. The aircraft involved in the Cornwall and English Channel flights were noted using Morse along with voice in order to pass the figure messages back to ground controls.

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Russia—Air/Tupolev-Tu-95MS/1524019/L/

I made a recording of the IL-78M Midas HF Voice comms during 19 GMT as the Tu-95s were on the return leg.

https://soundcloud.com/tomteej/russian-air-force-strategic-bomber-hf-voice-18-february-2015-1929-gmt

The two Tu-95s were reported as coming close to Iceland.

Russian military planes have not flown so close to Iceland since the US military left its base in Keflavík, Southwest Iceland, in 2006, ruv.is reports.

The bombers flew past Iceland twice, very close, or 26 nautical miles, from Stokksnes headland in Southeast Iceland on the second occasion, before flying close to the coast of the UK.

http://icelandreview.com/news/2015/02/19/two-russian-bombers-fly-close-iceland

RAF Voyager tanker was up on Flight Radar 24.