Intercepted Russian bomber was carrying a nuclear missile over the Channel | UK | News | Daily Express

one Bear carried a nuclear ASW missile, the other was monitoring the exercise. Comint probably intercepted in Vardo, northern Norway; Nato knew what's going on long before the aircraft were anywhere near UK airspace, and the Russians know Nato knows ;)

How do we know it was carrying a nuke? Just because they said they had one on board doesn't mean they did?

That Portuguese F16 pilot looks far more interested in his camera ship than he does in the Bear he's supposed to be intercepting

See also

http://www.pprune.org/military-aviat...nemouth-2.html

I have put an animation there showing the path of tanker and Typhoon
in the Eastbourne area.
The red line is the UK FIR boundary

I may be getting cynical in my old age but:

Defence secretary makes a speech saying he is planning to sell off surplus RAF airfields
Within a couple of days, a relatively routine QRA incident appears in the papers as if WW3 is about to kick off, and only the RAF can keep us safe

Coincidence?

(And if not, three cheers for whoever thought it up)

Some HF voice recordings from the 28th January 2015 mission. Tu-95 Bear or IL-78 Midas at the following link. The aircraft used a combination of Voice and Morse to pass encoded messages.

https://planesandstuff.wordpress.com/

Agreed, we can't know, we're just reading the newspaper. And frankly, the amount of spelling mistakes and misunderstandings there is more worrying to me than Russian bombers:

and the "nuclear missile" is most likely a reference to some kind kind of air-dropped torpedo (I have yet to see a flying submarine).

A View of the Interceptors from the Intercepted
 

All this excitement about QRA’s and intercepts of potentially hostile aircraft had me rummaging around in my album for photos taken in 1980 of what is seen of the interceptor from the intercepted aircraft.

There we were trundling along at 20,000 ft over the middle of the Indian Ocean miles from anywhere, en-route from Sri Lanka to Seeb (Muscat) when an American voice came over the UHF emergency frequency asking us to look out to our left. Sure enough we’d been intercepted by a couple of F-14s and F-4s from the USS “Coral Sea”.

Having identified us as RAF, we had a friendly chat and wondered why the intercept? Seems they were on constant readiness and all unknown aircraft approaching their battle group was deemed to be hostile until proven otherwise, hence the intercept. The hostage crisis of U.S. Embassy staff being held by the militant followers of the Ayatollah Khomeini in Tehran was in full flow and the USS Coral Sea was on station in the northern Indian Ocean / Gulf of Oman area monitoring the situation.

Anyway a couple of photos taken at the time when being intercepted by US Navy fighters are attached.

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r...erc6Medium.jpg


http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r...erc1Medium.jpg


http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r...erc3Medium.jpg


http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r...erc4Medium.jpg


http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r...erc5Medium.jpg




http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r...erc7Medium.jpg

I agree, it doesn't really matter what they were carrying on board the aircraft, as long as they don't make any attempt to penetrate UK airspace without clearance. If they did that, then it's a different story, but so far I've seen no evidence of their activity suggesting hostile intent, or conspiring to commit a hostile act at a later date (news articles aren't really evidence).

Weapons get tested all the time, and the RAF are not squeaky clean in that they don't have any weapons (or something that can be construed as a weapon) fitted to the pylons in international airspace, when they aren't going to war or returning from war. Look at the Typhoon pictures from this year when they were en route to the USA. Each aircraft had an inert weapon system on at least one of its pylons, so what's stopping another country from doing the same? It's perfectly legal to do as long as you don't attempt to enter another's airspace without permission, and your actions aren't threatening.

Warmtoast, brilliant images! Thank you.

F-4 is soo much better looking than the F-14.

"...American voice over UHF emergency freq..." The same way they tried calling the Iran Air Airbus, with its "refusal" to respond reinforcing its designation as hostile.

Having been on the receiving end of a challenge by a USN warship in the pre-dawn Indian Ocean (or it could have been one of half a dozen other airliners innocently following their flightplans) I can tell you it concentrates the mind!

Given that CV43 never operated the F14, looks like you had a visit from CVW15 from the USS Kitty Hawk as well. The Marine F4 was from CVW14 on the Coral Sea.

On second thought, I am not going to go down this rat hole. I see a (political) distinction you don't, so be it.
@ West Coast: a collision is a risk of the game being played, just as it was during the Cold War when this was a routine deal. The game is political, and the topic is willy waving and "probing" just as before. Same Stuff, different day, no big deal, for professionals. For journos and hand wringers ... what isn't a big deal? We live in the age of drama queens.
Wrong, Beags. It was in the PG and at that location due to its mission.
The argument on whether or not Vincennes should have done what it did is another matter (to include the wisdom of engaging in that particular surface action) which I note has brought the usual suspects out, and the usual amount of utter tripe. For example, your fellow traveler:
A lot of wrong in one paragraph.
He also forgets that the USN had a certain paranoia in the Persian Gulf at the time due to the previous year's USS Stark attack, a lethal mistake by Saddam's air force ... or so the Iraqi story went.
The criticism of the Captain within the USN was considerable.
USNI Proceedings, which was once a journal where a lot of professional discussion/debate etc went on had numerous articles pro and con, the CO of the USS Sides being not the only one who was very critical of Captain R.
Further criticisms of some of the outright crap posted on this topic is edited in an effort to remind self, and others, that this thread is about Russians flying near to the UK's air space.

Not a boffin

Thanks for the clarification - it was a long time ago!

Fair point, lonewolf in as far as dragging us off the case of the USN. But when you say "no big deal for professionals..." the trouble is, it wasn't military professionals who bore the brunt of the sudden reroutes caused by the Channel portion of this willy-waving adventure. There are huge tracts of the world to play Cold War posturing to everyone's hearts content but it's not reasonable to expect the general public, families travelling with children to shoulder needless risk.

Deptrai,

http://www.pprune.org/8849076-post61.html

The journalist, Marco Giannageli, has a recent history of ludicrous stories. He claimed Russia was about to supply Argentina with Su-24 Fencers. I've just checked and he is still peddling the bogus Su-24 story!

December 28th, 2014

Falkland Islands defence review after military deal between Russia and Argentina | UK | News | Daily Express

January 18th, 2015

Falklands latest: UK sends MOST POWERFUL warship to Falklands to strengthen defences | UK | News | Daily Express

Februaty 1st, 2015

Falklands on HIGH ALERT: Hundreds of UK troops sent to boost security at Argentina threat | World | News | Daily Express

ShotOne, are you referring to the Airbus FBW, 777 landing features on VFR days, or something else? :}

I don't see how the Russian planes playing willy waving games near UK airspace somehow becomes that Pax taking on added burderns.

I do see the points made earlier on them making ATC's job harder.

In that case allow me to explain, lonewolf. The airspace over the channel is very busy. If a large corridor is suddenly rendered off-limits by an uncooperative aircraft, hundreds of aircraft under several different control authorities have to be rerouted or delayed on the ground. ATC did a superb job, but cranking the pressure on certainly increases the risk of calamity.

I perhaps do not see the severity level as you do, thanks for taking the time to explain so succinctly. :ok: