Originally Posted by
radiosutch
Ok so there's a flight plan.
Ok so some bad actor puts a civilian transponder on a bomber with all the correct data in it
Ok the target flies the flight plan route.
Ok so the yanks see these 'civilian' plane on primary and secondary radar squawking the correct code, on the flight path
So how do they 'know' what the target is without sending up something to visually ID it??
How does any country know with 100% certainty that any aircraft entering their airspace isn’t a hostile aircraft faking a transponder code? The scenario you described could apply to any nation. I doubt whether you’re advocating every aircraft overflying a nation to be visually identified by fighters? There’s thousands of overflights every day, looks like the fighters will be busy.
If you’re specifically referring to Syria, then I ask again why weren’t the Qatari and Lebanese Aircraft flying the exact route over the same base intercepted?