Many of the Comet and Camberra flights were intercepted by Soviet fighters in the 1960's, that was one of the mission objectives. The idea was to "intimidate" the Soviet defences into coming up to their "angry" war mode. Fighter AI could be heard to go from track to aquisition and finally lock on. Ground defences were tested by flying low under radar coverage and then "popping up" at the last minute in order to trigger the fire control radar.
I believe that the Korean flight 007 was involved in a similar game. On this occasion the aircraft was acting as the "ferret", whist the American elint aircraft collected vital information in safe airspace.
DV
Last edited by Distant Voice; 30th Sep 2014 at 09:17.
Reason: Change of wording