Military AircrewA forum for the professionals who fly the non-civilian hardware, and the backroom boys and girls without whom nothing would leave the ground. Army, Navy and Airforces of the World, all equally welcome here.
RAF Intercepting Russian "and other nation's" Aircraft. Whose?
The Times reported today 09/07/10 that the RAF is still busy intercepting military aircraft incursions into our airspace from Russian and "other" airforces.
I was going to ask for a link - but then remembered that "The Times" now requires a subscription to view their material on the internet - thereby immediately reducing the credibility of their information.
If I had to make an entirely uninformed guess - maybe it is some surreptitious leak by Murdoch put out by the RAF to justify their spending on Typhoon? And maybe just ahead of Farnborough 2010 opportunity to showcase Typhoon air-defence capability?
French.... Intercepted last Tuesday south of the IOW.
LOL
I don't know who to laugh at louder. Either the MOD (and French equivalent) are wasting public money by launching unplanned (at a mid level) "attacks" at each other to test QRF, or the RAF are "walting" and making false claims to "The Times", or "The Times" is choosing to ignore journalist ethics and is towing the RAF line.
Or does somebody want to claim that the FAF were genuinely planning to attack us?
Not really the right forum I realise, but I'm trying to understand from Trimstab the logic of the comment "The Times" now requires a subscription to view their material on the internet - thereby immediately reducing the credibility of their information.
Very interesting for us media folk because a key argument is that a paywall, if anything, increases the credibility of the information behind it. Because the reason it's demanding payment is to pay the people who go and get the information. The corollary being that if your info is cheap enough to give away then perhaps it wasn't very expensive to get, and so probably wasn't all that good.
I can't exaggerate how important this is to the future of the news business.
Not really the right forum I realise, but I'm trying to understand from Trimstab the logic of the comment "The Times" now requires a subscription to view their material on the internet - thereby immediately reducing the credibility of their information.
Indeed the Times "paywall" concept is risky - and to me it is the wrong way forward, because if the information cannot be immediately viewed, discussed and probed for veracity in a free forum (such as this) then it is of diminished credibility.
The specific news item here is an example - clearly it is scaremongering to assert that a foreign nation is testing our air defence. If an assertion like that had been made in the "free" press, a link would be posted and would have been discussed, dissected, and dismissed by now. But as we have to pay to see this assertion, there is no debate. All seems very fishy to me, especially given Murdoch's already established tendency to manipulate media.
Location: Quite near 'An aerodrome somewhere in England'
Posts: 20,213
Quote:
I can't exaggerate how important this is to the future of the news business.
The Times' arrogant attitude has alienated many, many people. I certainly won't be contributing to Murdoch's fortune by paying to access his ridiculous paywall.
Those who used to skim through the odd headline and feature in the Sunday Times are not going to pay the same as someone who reads the thing from end to end. Why should they?
So it's the Sunday Telegraph on line for me from now on. Murdoch can stuff his paywall where the sun doesn't shine.
Back to QRA, I don't recall having supported interceptions of other than Russian aircraft. But I've been intercepted by Portuguese A-7s (classified AAR mission in international waters), Italian F-104s (Vulcan MRR in international waters) and Spanish F-18s (practice intercept). Presumably the UK's QRA force also intercepts the odd 'unknown contact' on occasion?
In my time on QRA I had a slack handful of Russians, a Syrian, 2 Libyans, an Israeli, an Italian and several Americans.
None were bent on attacking UK and/or her interests but all were in airspace for which the UK was responsible (DfT as well as MOD) and 'patrolled' by UK aircraft. They were not complying with the normal standards of reporting and use of airspace including the necessary diplomatic clearances. So we went to have a look; as they could have been anybody - simple really.
Hardest of all was the low level relatively slow thing just under a 1500' cloud base by night in the Iceland Faeroes Gap. Only light on the beast was an anti-col down the back somewhere and the only thing we could see was a MAD boom. Never really sure if it was a P3 or a Nimrod as neither community would admit to be out there at the time (some clandestine op I suspect kept secret even from our own side!).
I think Murdoch is on a hiding to nothing over anyone paying to access his news sites. I mean, who would pay when you can get the same news elsewhere for free?
Most of the news I get nowadays is from blogs anyway, written by non jounalists and it is more reliable, reasonably unbiased and has less spelling mistakes.
All career journos should look at what happened to flight engineers as a career choice once technology took hold.
Last edited by J52; 20th Jul 2010 at 10:17.
Reason: correct spelling
Location: Quite near 'An aerodrome somewhere in England'
Posts: 20,213
Well, JF, it seems that only 10% of those who signed up for The Times 'free' month trial have decided to pay the Murdoch paywall fee..... So on current showing, the on-line paywall is an abject failure, although perhaps a convenient perk for those who subscribe to the paper version.
Incidentally, I saw an exellent documentary on the Harrier programme a couple of days ago whilst channel-hopping through the more obscure satellite movie channels. Your usual clarity in explaining technical issues to a layman audience - but were you wearing that tie for a bet ?
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