2020 QRA vs Bears

[safetypee]

Bears still going 50+ years.
Several changes in that time, the latest shown in recent photos.
Third photo taken from below, a lower fuselage appendage with a hole; also note that the top of the fin protrusion is forward opposed to the other aircraft to the rear.
ELINT plus tanker support ?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-51789577

[Lyneham Lad]

Just read this on the Beeb's website. (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-51789577) Six Typhoons in the air on a Saturday!
Six RAF fighter jets were scrambled to intercept Russian aircraft as they approached British airspace, the Ministry of Defence has said.

The Russian bombers were tracked heading towards the north-west coast of Scotland on Saturday.

It prompted the air force to deploy three pairs of Typhoons from its Quick Reaction Alert programme.

Two pairs left from RAF Lossiemouth in Moray, while the third flew from RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire.

Flying in formation, two pairs approached the aircraft before withdrawing, while the third pair forced them to change course.

[meleagertoo]

I was wondering about that white appendage under the fuselage too.

Anyone got ideas?

[ORAC]

BEAR J - TU-142MR -- The TU-142MR was a further modification of the Tu-142M used for submarine communication relay. This allowed national command authorities and strategic missile-carrying submarines to communicate. The underfuselage search radar has been removed, and the aircraft is equipped with an underfuselage winch pod for a several kilometer long trailing wire antenna.


https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1200x812/image_e403e01742809865fe4fa6190daefa396a65edbf.jpeg

[HAS59]

The one you refer to is a version of the Tu-142. There are around 12 of these Tu-142MR Bear J aircraft. They deploy a long wire antennae from the housing below the fuselage used for submarine radio relay missions. They are more easily identified by the forward facing 'pod' on top of the tail. Not to be confused with the similar aft-facing MAD boom on the later Bear F MPA variants.

he he he ORAC beat me by seconds ...

[unmanned_droid]

Looks like these guys were also picked up by RNoAF F16s and the first Norwegian F35 QRA intercept. In those images the Bears had Mig-31 Escort.

[Dan Winterland]

IIRC< that trailing antenna could be 20km long! Which is why we had to identify the type before manoeuvring through their centreline.

[racedo]

It is good of the RuAF to provide training opportunities for QRA.

Always wonder why they don't send 4 and then do a double dispersal, would give everybody a busy day.

[weemonkey]

IIRC< that trailing antenna could be 20km long! Which is why we had to identify the type before manoeuvring through their centreline.


Nicely worded Dan. ;)

[Just a spotter]

Bears still going 50+ years.
Several changes in that time, the latest shown in recent photos.
Third photo taken from below, a lower fuselage appendage with a hole; also note that the top of the fin protrusion is forward opposed to the other aircraft to the rear.
ELINT plus tanker support ?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-51789577

From The Irish Times, 8th March 2020

Two unidentified military aircraft entered Irish airspace on Saturday when British RAF fighters scrambled to intercept Russian bombers off the northwest coast of Ireland, aviation authorities have confirmed.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/military-aircraft-breach-irish-airspace-during-russian-interception-1.4196696

JAS

[Lima Juliet]

Some video footage on Twitter. Good to see the solitary pilot has to formate in autopilot and film with a handheld video camera! :eek:

https://twitter.com/raflossiemouth/status/1236588538235412480?s=21

[ShyTorque]

Interesting that the very distinctive sound of the Bear could even be picked up by the camera inside the jet!

[Lordflasheart]

...
Which is why we had to identify the type before manoeuvring through their centreline.

From distant memory of learned explanations in Aviation Week, the 707 TACAMO had two trailing wires - 19000 and 29000 ft.

The idea was that the aircraft flew in tight circles at high level while one wire excited the other and the longer one had much of its length hanging vertical - something to do with getting the correct polar diagram for VLF comms with deep submerged subs.

During early testing, the 160 KIAS tight circles at high level caused the wire to wrap itself round the back end of the 707 which caused a bit of alarm.

But the trailing wires probably had a better kill range than the BEAR tail gunner, if you needed to get within range of either. Unless he now has access to SDAAM.

...

[sycamore]

LFH,actually it has a loudspeaker on the end,so if you get the height correct it can `dip`,a technique invented by missionary Nate Saint,lowering trinkets to the aborigines in the S American jungle.They can now `shout` to the sub,and await replies from the Engineer tapping on the hull with a big spanner.....

[Lordflasheart]

...
Naaah Sycamore !! ... You're confusing that with the WWI anti U-boat programme for spraying green paint on the surface of the 'oggin so it obscured the lens of Herr Kapitan's periscope, in the hope that he didn't realised he'd surfaced and kept ascending until he was high enough to be shot down by a Biff or Ninak.

...

[TEEEJ]

It is good of the RuAF to provide training opportunities for QRA.

It is good, but those Bears are Russian Navy.

[Imagegear]

Shades of Red October in March

IG

[A_Van]

It is good, but those Bears are Russian Navy.

That's correct. Tu-142 belong to Navy, while Tu-95 - to AF.

Strange to see that such flights are being discussed since they are quite routine since 60's. Here in Russia they are called "flights for a corner". This is because the planes first go straight northbound and then (after leaving behind Norwegian waters on the left) make a 90+ deg left turn to North Atlantic.

[racedo]

It is good, but those Bears are Russian Navy.

Point taken but bet QRA teams love this.

[Tankertrashnav]

Flying in formation, two pairs approached the aircraft before withdrawing, while the third pair forced them to change course.

Gosh, just think, if they hadn't been intercepted they would have flown straight into our airspace, maybe even attacked Oban! What a load of tosh, but par for the course from so-called defence correspondents in the media these days.

[Il Duce]

My local BBC identified a RAF unit that launched Typhoons to intercept the Bears. Said it was RAF Lowsmouth. Anyone got an idea where it is?

[morton]

The Sunday Post – a Scottish paper so they should know better – correctly identified the Typhoons as coming from Lossiemouth. Problem is that Lossiemouth is identified as a ‘Fife base’ according to them.
For our foreign cousins….The Kingdom / County / Council area of Fife is where RAF Leuchars was until 2015 and used to be the Scottish QRA base. QRA is now the Typhoons at Lossiemouth, 95 miles up the road in Moray. RAF Lowsmouth was probably identified by the same fact and spell checker!

Looking forward to when Poseidon becomes operational and RAF Lossiemouth being identified as HMS Fulmar because someone associates Maritime patrols with the Navy!

[TEEEJ]

Point taken but bet QRA teams love this.

I agree and especially on a weekend! Also it makes a change from the standard Bear Hs.

Video from one of the Tu-142s. MiG-31 Foxhound at 0:36. MiG-31 at 0:56 squeezing in between Norwegian F-16 and Tu-142. 1:59 Norwegian F-35As

lb4x1FG9Dw0

[MATELO]

Looks as though they are back again. Same sort of area. Rumour from another site is they are interested in HMS Prince of Wales undergoing sea trials.

[TEEEJ]

Voyager tanker on flightradar24.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1201x542/madras_d182f424b697e7f748d207925d6e64b724ccb912.jpg

Live feed.

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/zz337/#24258fee

[TEEEJ]

Two Tu-142 Bear F's.

https://twitter.com/RAFLossiemouth/status/1237840284177682438

[TEEEJ]

The Russians are back again! UK and French QRA have been scrambled.

[racedo]

The Russians are back again! UK and French QRA have been scrambled.

Sit listening to Coronavirus at nauseum on the telly or get some real flight time in. Yup I can guess what crew looking for.

Bet the sign off is "Same time tomorrow, Boris"....... followed by RAF saying "Ok Sergei"

[TEEEJ]

Sit listening to Coronavirus at nauseum on the telly or get some real flight time in. Yup I can guess what crew looking for.

Bet the sign off is "Same time tomorrow, Boris"....... followed by RAF saying "Ok Sergei"
Also keeping the French, Spanish and Portuguese QRA busy!

https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_174349.htm

[TEEEJ]

Today it was 2 x Tu-160 Blackjacks.

https://twitter.com/RAFLossiemouth/status/1238162463792791556

[Martin the Martian]

Interesting piece in The Sunday Times Irish news section today:

Russian planes flying in rings off Kerry linked to submarines

Giant military planes spend two hours doing circles off the Irish coast to ‘test Nato preparedness’

The Tu-142MR Bear-J was one of six aircraft monitored by Nato and European air forces as it skirted the west coast before flying in circles off Kerry for two hours on March 7.

Military aviation experts say the aircraft is designed to communicate with submarines using a 5km-long trailing antenna, which it reels out in mid-air.

The aircraft was among six long-range Russian aircraft whose activities were monitored off the west coast on three separate occasions. The movements of the aircraft were tracked by Nato as they came around the north of Europe before passing Scotland and Ireland.

The first incident occurred on March 7 when a Tu-142MK Bear-F anti-submarine aircraft and the Bear-J communications relay aircraft were monitored over the Atlantic.

Two more Tu-142 Bear-F anti-submarine aircraft were monitored on March 11 while a pair of Tu-160 Blackjack bombers were seen on March 12. The bombers have missiles that can strike targets on land from far out at sea.

Keir Giles, an associate fellow at Chatham House, the British think-tank, said the flights posed a serious danger to transatlantic flights. He said the Bear-J relay was normally used to communicate with submarines using its “immensely long trailing antenna” for very low frequency (VLF) radio transmissions.

“This was the aircraft that circled off Kerry on March 7. The other Bear type, the Bear-F, is equipped to search for and destroy submarines and can also carry out long-range reconnaissance,” he said.

Giles said Russian military aircraft often passed off the west coast without talking to air traffic control or filing a flight plan. In many cases, their transponders are switched off, which prevents civilian air traffic control centres from tracking their movements.

“This has a significant impact on civilian air traffic, which [may] have to be rerouted in order to ensure it can continue safely — especially if there is a danger that a Bear-J might be trailing an enormously long antenna,” said Giles, who has been an adviser to the British on Russian intentions.

“It’s tempting to assume that a submarine will be where a Bear-J is circling, or even that this will be connected with known Russian interest in transatlantic subsea cables in and around Ireland. But VLF transmissions have enormously long range, so the submarine or submarines the aircraft were talking to, if there were any there at all, could have been in an entirely different part of the world,” he added.

Mark Galeottik, an expert on the Russian military, said it was almost certain that Russia was testing Nato response times and that the flights were Moscow’s way of projecting resolve.

“Switching off their transponders, which the Russians shouldn’t do but is routine, is at once a provocation,’’ said Galeotti. “That said, in this case it absolutely does appear that they were testing Nato preparedness.”

The Department of Foreign Affairs declined to say whether it had made representations to Moscow. “The government keeps all matters of national security under constant review,” it said.

The Russian embassy in Dublin confirmed its military carried out training missions in the north Atlantic.

“These flights take place in the international airspace. The aircraft at no point enter the sovereign airspace of Ireland, or any other country. Our military aircraft has been flying these missions for many decades. It has never been a problem for anyone, except, maybe, for the Nato establishment who has been exploiting for their own purposes the myth of Russian threat throughout much of a modern history,” it said.


Flying around in airspace without a transponder is not a problem. Of course not.

[Mogwi]

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune.org-vbulletin/1460x2000/bear_d_2__0a99f0ebf11d0f56be6988e416623e22725b581d.jpg
Things were much more black and white in my time!

Mog
:O

[Asturias56]

"Flying around in airspace without a transponder is not a problem. Of course not."

TBH you can probably hear then 50 miles away..................

[A_Van]

A question for those who are nervous about those flights: do you know how intensive are NATO flights near Russian borders in north-west?

A: About 800 flights of reconnaissance aircraft and some 400+ flights of combat ones in 2019. 30% increase vs 2018 of the former and nearly double of the latter.

[WB627]

Whilst flying Wellingtons from Tilstock, my dad, low on fuel and the navigator unsure of their position, descended to low level, (we all know what that meant in the RAF in WW2) but failed to advise his wireless operator, who had the trailing aerial extended, which decapitated a farmers cow. I don't know why he was not courts-martialed for this offence (I believe it was on the list), nor do I know why my farther in law was not charged for putting the lead weight of one through the side of a house with a Lancaster at low level. However, my father did subsequently received a medal for this occurrence, from his crew, (I have it in my collection of the family medals) and he was subsequently awarded a bar to this medal, for landing at a disused airfield, Sleap (there is a thread on this LOL).

[Mil-26Man]

A question for those who are nervous about those flights: do you know how intensive are NATO flights near Russian borders in north-west?

A: About 800 flights of reconnaissance aircraft and some 400+ flights of combat ones in 2019. 30% increase vs 2018 of the former and nearly double of the latter.

All aircraft flying under NATO authority do so with their transponders turned on, always. They are not a danger to commercial air traffic.

[Asturias56]

All aircraft flying under NATO authority do so with their transponders turned on, always. They are not a danger to commercial air traffic.


TBH there isn't a lot of commercial traffic up North whereas off S ireland.....................

[Jet Dragoneer]

The transponder issue might be a red herring. I have a faint memory from my distant past from my FC training in the 80s, that Russian military IFF/SSR was in a different frequency band from the western band and therefore would not be detected/decoded.

[Mil-26Man]

IMO, being fitted with the 'wrong' equipment, not being fitted with any equipment, or being fitted with the correct equipment and not turning it on, all amount to the same thing, really.

[Martin the Martian]

"Flying around in airspace without a transponder is not a problem. Of course not."

TBH you can probably hear then 50 miles away..................

Fair point. Time perhaps to get these bad boys back into commission? :E

https://theromneymarsh.net/soundmirrors

[Just This Once...]

The transponder issue might be a red herring. I have a faint memory from my distant past...

They are fitted with and do use a regular civilian transponder. Unfortunately they typically turn it off when encroaching on an FIR and mastering the art of being a safety problem, but not always. They also tend to file regular flight plans for long-range transits (eg to Venezuela) and for these they squawk & talk normally.

You may be confusing military-only IFF systems and yes, there is little perceived need for these systems to cooperate!

[Asturias56]

Fair point. Time perhaps to get these bad boys back into commission? :E

https://theromneymarsh.net/soundmirrors


having heard Bears from the ground I don't think you need an amplifier - you need ear plugs.........................

[racedo]

All aircraft flying under NATO authority do so with their transponders turned on, always. They are not a danger to commercial air traffic.

So what about those flying under Sovreign Govt authority.

[Mil-26Man]

That's down to the government involved, though I've not heard of any instances of NATO member states not doing so in non-combat conditions. My statement was in response to comment re "NATO flights".

[A_Van]

Are you all sure that NATO planes always fly with transponders ON? I am not. It is often (not always, to be fair) specially underlined in reports that transponders were off.
What about these talks 4 years ago?
https://www.wsj.com/articles/nato-rejects-russian-air-safety-proposal-for-planes-in-baltic-region-1474391644NATO Rejects Russian Air-Safety Proposal for Planes in Baltic Region....
WSJ seems not to be a pro-Russian fake news agency.....

[Mil-26Man]

Are you all sure that NATO planes always fly with transponders ON? I am not. It is often (not always, to be fair) specially underlined in reports that transponders were off.
What about these talks 4 years ago?
https://www.wsj.com/articles/nato-re...ion-1474391644 (https://www.wsj.com/articles/nato-rejects-russian-air-safety-proposal-for-planes-in-baltic-region-1474391644)NATO Rejects Russian Air-Safety Proposal for Planes in Baltic Region....
WSJ seems not to be a pro-Russian fake news agency.....

I have visited both the NATO CAOCs at Ueden in Germany and Torrejon in Spain. Russian's flying without transponders was/is a big issue so I made a point of asking about NATO aircraft, and was assured point-blank that ALL aircraft flying under NATO authority do so with their transponders turned on, always.

[racedo]

That's down to the government involved, though I've not heard of any instances of NATO member states not doing so in non-combat conditions. My statement was in response to comment re "NATO flights".

Which is a handy get out. Govts will claim that under "NATO" control they always have transponders on but ignore majority of flights will not be NATO ones.

[Mil-26Man]

Which is a handy get out. Govts will claim that under "NATO" control they always have transponders on but ignore majority of flights will not be NATO ones.

Anything NATO has to say about anything is 'a handy get out' to you racedo, that much has become clear over the years of your postings.

[racedo]

Anything NATO has to say about anything is 'a handy get out' to you racedo, that much has become clear over the years of your postings.

I rarely comment on what NATO says but hey you can post what you think.

But as USAF / RAF etc report to Sovreign Govts then we can safely assume they don't use transponders on non NATO excursions when flying close to other countrys borders.

[Mil-26Man]

But as USAF / RAF etc report to Sovreign Govts then we can safely assume they don't use transponders on non NATO excursions when flying close to other countrys borders.

Why would you assume that? I only made reference to 'NATO' because that is what the OP said and it was a NATO rep that I spoke to. The rep made no mention of the RAF, USAF etc flying without transponders, so not sure why you'd conclude that to be the case.

[Tengah Type]

Looking at MOGWI's picture at #31 reminds me of an occasion in March 1981, when, west of Ireland heading south, my brave Wg Cdr Victor pilot took us to that position on one of the Bears.

The F4 crew that we were supporting told us " I would not go there if I were you"

Shortly after that they told us that the Sonobouy that the Bear had dropped had passed between the fuselage and the tailplane!!!!!

We moved back to echelon on the Bear.

I still remember the first time we got within 100ft of one, and how the noise and vibration we felt was a little concerning. I assume UK Health and Safety Noise Regulations do not apply to them.

When I had the chance to look around one at Fairford I was amazed to see the crew escape system. anybody else wish to describe it?

On a different tack, it was always a good wind up to ask any F4 crews who were wearing a "10 Bear badge" if they knew where we could get a "30 Bear badge" .