Raf Intercept Russian BEAR

Zaph, the SR-71 may have not overflown the USSR cross country for several hours at a time like the U-2 did but they still continued to make incursions several hundred miles at a time. Though they preferred to fly near and linear to the border rather than just penetrate straight through. As far as other countries go they still would overfly them straight through due to the risk level being lower.

The Bear is not just a recon platform. It has an awsome range and payload ability.

The last large Bear formation was when a flight of five Bears flew around Norway past Scotland and into the mid Atlantic in October 2006. The now carry hypersonic nuclear cruise missiles.

The SR-71 and the A-12 NEVER overflew the Soviet Mainland. All overflights stopped with the Executive Order by Eisenhower. It was BUILT to overly them, but it never did.

A-12s overflew North Vietnam, and SR-71s overflew China, North Vietnam, North Korea, and many countries in the Middle East. There was a plan to fly an SR-71 barely into Soviet airspace and have a U-2 doing ELINT work to get signals from the radar systems tracking the SR-71, but it wasn't approved. Contrary to popular thinking though, neither the SR-71 or the A-12 ever penetrated Soviet airspace.

[edit on 6/23/2007 by Zaphod58]

Zaph, you may well be right, after looking around a bit I could not find any supporting evidence that the SR-71 family flew in Soviet airspace. My original comments came from a program regarding stealth and the SR-71. In it a (retired) senior manager of Lockheed said similar comments.

Originally posted by Daedalus3
The Bear is still an awesome recon platform.
Like somebody said before it serves as a great pair of eyes in open/international waters, since there isn't much that can intercept it here.

Search for carrier groups, boomers etc etc..
Lots of abilities.

I totally agree with that, it's a beast!

Thanks for posting the picture waynos! Been looking for that online.

Originally posted by WestPoint23
Zaph, you may well be right, after looking around a bit I could not find any supporting evidence that the SR-71 family flew in Soviet airspace. My original comments came from a program regarding stealth and the SR-71. In it a (retired) senior manager of Lockheed said similar comments.

The CIA are due to release documents of there overseas spying, maybe better to save judgement until then.I doubt information on CIA over flights would be available on the net, as even putin`s guys can use a computor.Bearly

Clashrock, here's some more photos of bears in 2006.


www.aviationforum.org... d.php?s=fdbf0b5e90fd5c3714c0ba016a23abe2&threadid=8084



[edit on 26-6-2007 by sy.gunson]

Oops... wrong thread.

[edit on 26-6-2007 by grover]