Welcome back Russian "Bear"!
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Tu-95 is now officially back on long distance surveillance duty.
Published intercepts incl
Sep'06 near the coast of Alaska
May'07, near Scotland
July'07, Norwegian coast towards Scotland
Aug '07 near Guam island.
Can't help that same chilling FUN has returned.
Wander why the Russian still retain that cool Red Star on the tail even a decade after USSR dissolved???.... that "Bear" is still one of my favours nevetheless.
Photo courtesy 12th Fighter Squadron, Elmendorf Air Force base (Sep 06)
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The Raptor squadron is now operational at elmendorf.
It would be nice to see it with the bears in a pic soon.
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Yes cold war is back.
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Why, only the bear’s resuming its strategy air patrol is interpreted as “cold war started”,
but Yanks do it all the time, in 2001, one of “American bears” was even knocked out in China. -
i don't get it, how come they are still using propellor aircraft in this time and age of jet engines?
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well, they cant be bothered to design an all new plane just to show off. tts my guess.
yeah interestingly why is the Red Star still there on the tail. -
After reading the BBC report, i cant help but feel that Russia is trying to 'guai-lan' Nato like HELL!
DAMN this is serioously cool. -
Its hard to imagine an F-22 being sent up to babysit a bear. If lets say the Russians are sending Sukhois, then most likely u'll see F-22.
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How to "see" an F-22....the US will "hao lian" Your TU-160 will be escorted by F015s...An F-22 will be "watching" over the entire process...Leave the Russians to guess where their -only easily visible by the eye- plane is.
Anyway, propellor driven planes are still very powerful...look at the B-52...that monster can probably flattern a chunk of singapore at a go. -
The B-52 is not exactly propeller driven as its 8 engines are from Pratt & Whitney TF33-P-3/103 turbofans.Originally posted by CM06:How to "see" an F-22....the US will "hao lian" Your TU-160 will be escorted by F015s...An F-22 will be "watching" over the entire process...Leave the Russians to guess where their -only easily visible by the eye- plane is.
Anyway, propellor driven planes are still very powerful...look at the B-52...that monster can probably flattern a chunk of singapore at a go.
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/bomber/b-52.htm -
Putin is a good man.
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when you have money, you can do alot of rubbish.Originally posted by Manager433:Putin is a good man. -
The raptor already replaced the F15Cs.
unless they want to send the strike eagles up?
i dont know. -
You saw him in the Sunday Times today? Half naked and also in a Malboro Man pose..Originally posted by Manager433:Putin is a good man.
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B52 is propeller aircraft meh?Originally posted by CM06:How to "see" an F-22....the US will "hao lian" Your TU-160 will be escorted by F015s...An F-22 will be "watching" over the entire process...Leave the Russians to guess where their -only easily visible by the eye- plane is.
Anyway, propellor driven planes are still very powerful...look at the B-52...that monster can probably flattern a chunk of singapore at a go. -
Actually some modern maritime patrol aircraft are still on the propeller design too. They have their advantages..Originally posted by beavan:i don't get it, how come they are still using propellor aircraft in this time and age of jet engines?
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But see the B-52H's engines are what 40 years old? If they've been replaced, the frames sure as hell haven't which means the youngest B-52 is 45yrs old already.
In contrast the only operational Bears if wiki can be believed are no more than 27yrs old...
But the debate on quality of the engineering between russia and usa is another matter altogether -
to think they were grounded in the past because the Russians could not afford the fuel...
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At least with the Russians, there wasn't all this Al-Qaeda and crazy jihadist crap running around.
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They are still busy crushing the scattered remnants in Chechnya.Originally posted by LazerLordz:At least with the Russians, there wasn't all this Al-Qaeda and crazy jihadist crap running around. -
Those contra-rotating props are really good on gas! The bear has a combat range of about 7800miles, which is great endurance for a bomber. Its also one of the fastest prop bombers around still.Originally posted by LRRP:Actually some modern maritime patrol aircraft are still on the propeller design too. They have their advantages..
I think u can find out more about the Bear on wiki. Pretty good write ups on some of the NATO-Bear incidents. -
Paisehh yar B-52 turbo fans...duh
Anyway here's something REALLY interesting too:
Taken from http://www.abcnews.go.com/WN/Story?id=3493887&page=1
So High, So Fast
At virtually any moment — day or night — you can look up and know that somewhere over Earth there's a U-2 pilot at the edge of outer space, watching and listening.
The U-2 is the most famous spy plane in history. Developed in secret for the CIA more than 50 years ago, the U-2 first detected the movement of Soviet nuclear weapons into Cuba, sparking the Cuban Missile Crisis. But the U-2 is not just a piece of Cold War history; it has been quietly brought into the space age and is now flying more than ever.
The military doesn't like to talk about the U-2 plane much. Its missions are secret, much of its technology classified.
More than a year and half ago, I asked the Air Force for an opportunity to see the U-2 in action and, if possible, to actually fly in one. This was not an easy request. Few civilians have ever flown in a U-2. And almost all of them have only one seat; only five in the world have two.
But this week, after some intense training, the Air Force agreed to allow me to become one of the few civilians in history to fly to the edge of Earth's atmosphere in a U-2.
The U-2 flies so high, so fast, the pilot wears a spacesuit, the same one worn by astronauts on the space shuttle.
Before flying, I went through two days of training and preparation at Beale Air Force Base in northern California, home base for the U-2 since the 1960s.
Out on the runway at Beale, you can see why the U-2 is considered the most difficult plane in the world to fly. Each pilot has a co-pilot, who chases the plane on the runway in a sports car. Most of the cars are either Pontiac GTOs or Chevrolet Cameros — the Air Force buys American.
The chase cars talk the pilot down as he lands on bicycle-style landing gear. In that spacesuit, the pilot in the plane simply cannot get a good view of the runway.
Upon takeoff, the wings on this plane, which extend 103 feet from tip to tip, literally flap. To stabilize the wings on the runway, two pogo sticks on wheels prop up the ends of the wings. As the plane flies away, the pogo sticks drop off.
The plane climbs at an amazing rate of nearly 10,000 feet a minute. Within about four minutes, I was at 40,000 feet, higher than any commercial airplane. We kept going up to more than 70,000 feet, about 14 miles above Earth's surface.
You get an incredible sensation up there. As you look out the windows, it feels like you're floating, it feels like you're not moving, but you're actually going 500 mph.
The U-2 was built to go higher than any other aircraft. In fact today, more than 50 years since it went into production, the U-2 flies higher than any aircraft in the world with the exception of the space shuttle.
Since this spring there has been what you might call a U-2 surge. It is flying more missions and longer missions than ever before — nearly 70 missions a month over Iraq and Afghanistan, an operational tempo that is unequaled in history. The pilots fly for 11 hours at a time, sometimes more than 11 hours up there alone.
By flying so high, the U-2 has the capability of doing reconnaissance over a country without actually violating its airspace.
It can look off to the side, peering 300 miles or more inside a country without actually flying over it. It can "see" in the dark and through clouds.
It can also "hear," intercepting conversations 14 miles below.
The U-2, an incredible piece of history and also a current piece of high technology, is at the center of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Their copyright. Dont anyhow plagarise. -
Originally posted by LRRP:Actually some modern maritime patrol aircraft are still on the propeller design too. They have their advantages..
Bear had been known to out-accelerate some western jet fighters intercepts. The intercepters had to lit their AB just to keep up at cruising altitude.
The closest long-serving long-serving western prop classic that I can think of is the C-130.
IMHO, Tu-95 is both an aerodynamic and engineering marvel.
It is powerful, fast and efficient for a prop-driven strategic bomber.