Russian nuclear bomber flies undetected to within 20 miles of Hull

While we (UK) are big brother with US - we have this spy love/hate (okay mainly hate) relationship with Russia. The UK and Russia are hardly on speaking terms and this time of our own making (harbouring russian dissidents) - nowt to do with US.


This is more propoganda to stir the anti Russia feeling.

The RUssians never forgave us for all those James Bond films!

reply to post by templar knight

I'm not sure about harbouring disidents. Litvienenko was a British citizen. I would suggest
spreading radioactive material across London didn't help Anglo-Russian relations .

What would be funny is if the British had an automated land to air missle defense that detected it and launched then blew it out of the sky. Now that would be an international incident and funny as heck.

Originally posted by Beelzabub
Dude you know your screwed when

1 a bomber gets that close undetected

2 your alert 1 aircraft are off station and you dont have alert 2 to scramble

sounds a lot like the situation that we had in the U.S. about 7 years ago.

difference is, those were stealth 747s.

reply to post by Zepherian


Zeph you got it, as the Iraq police action winds down we will have to find another bad guy to perpetuate spending trillions on safety. The military was probably never more scared than when the cold war ended. What do you do with all those contractors that build stuff we don't need. At this point we are just creating things to keep thousands of people employed. That is something that I don't think most people even think about. What do you do with all the people. If you don't have war or at least the threat of it what would we do with all the people. I know build more prisons and hire them as guards. I thought Putin and Bush were buddies.

Originally posted by homo_borg

Originally posted by primamateria

Interesting then that the blackjack got close without being detected, maybe also result of passive stealth. Either way not too bad for such an old cold war era plane!

Well, it IS still currently the most advanced bomber in the world. We all know how useless F-117s are. We could only surmise how the B2 would fail miserably against Russian defences.

F-117s are slower but hardly uselsss, B-2s are not even in the same class as a BlackJack, a BlackJack is a lot more like the revised American B-1. Considering most of the B-2 is top secret, I doubt anyone could say for sure that it would "fail miserably"

theyve done this a few times now in the past couple of years. What does this mean? Who knows.

reply to post by primamateria


To call the "Blackjack", a poor copy of the B1 Lancer, a stealth bomber, is going a bit too far.
This just reveals the lac of funding to the RAF, that came with the British White Papers, of the 70's, and has left most of British airspace "free for all"...

Comparing, like some have, this peace of garbage with the B2 bomber is the same as comparing the Wildcat with the FA-18E...

reply to post by primamateria

I can believe the report. The UK has been innundated by the UFOsters. Perhaps they ignore some radar sightings. Or is this too far fetched.

reply to post by neformore

Well with everybody in Europe and England missing this plane, what are all these air force bases and radar's doing ? Maybe only working like ours was for just so many hours then turn it off , when Japan hit Pearl Harbor.
Heck maybe the Russians have a super secret carrier that they had loaded this bomber on and sneaked it in close, don't know but somebody needs to wake up.

Originally posted by wdkirk
What would be funny is if the British had an automated land to air missle defense that detected it and launched then blew it out of the sky. Now that would be an international incident and funny as heck.

So you think that WW3 would be funny?
You think that killing people is funny?

Now go back to your McJob, you are exactly right for the job.

reply to post by ZeroKnowledge

I agree with Zero. Russia would find it ironic to do to the West what the West did to them.
With Siberian gas supplying Europe, Russia does not have to risk military conflict, it has only to turn the valve. As to attacking the west, this is out of the question. Nothing would be gained and gas, oil, and mineral customers would be lost along with consumer goods that are not easily made by Russia. Russia wants to be a world power again, after a 15 year hiatus, and they are now becoming one. Putin is a powerful, intelligent leader and their political system allows for long term planning because of term limit structures and parallel heirarchies.
Their military is still basically designed as a defensive force. This is an aftermath of WW2 with the basic philosophy of defensive layers, making it nearly impossible to invade the Motherland. The loss of the protective buffer states with the collapse of the USSR caused a rethinking of that philosophy with development of some power projection forces. The recent events in Georgia seem to indicate that the buffer states are again desirable in the eyes of some.
The Blackjack flyovers are standard tests of response times and actions. Intercepts are standard unless high speed low flyers get in under the radar or the targets decide that a Blackjack is not a threat and want to allow an unintercepted flyover. This puts the Russian intel into a phase locked logic loop trying to decide if they could breach defenses or they were allowed to breach defenses for unknown reasons. If a Blackjack flying low and fast can get in, why spend money developing stealth technology? If stealth technology is not developed, what will happen when the West is deploying 4th generation stealth and Russia is still ugrading 1970's technology? No real information is gathered on a successful breach, but an intercept says everything is working properly. Sameness means stability.

Honestly guys i have friends in the RAF, one of which is an ex girlfriend who i know very well...trust me

They are all very aware of the situation and assure me its all Chinese whispers exaggerated by the media. Stop worrying.

Wow thats a big jet id never thought to look at one until now









[edit on 30-9-2008 by SvenTheBerserK]

reply to post by wdkirk


Automated missles and weapon systems are far too dangerous to activate in a non-combat situation. A single bomber flying close to British airspace is likely not a threat but a test of detection times and responses. This is a common cold war activity. The interesting aspect is how the Russians interpret a no intercept. Do they believe that their flight envelope was successful in allowing a 1970's era bomber to penetrate British defenses or are they being allowed to believe it for other reasons? This will actually confound them more than an intercept. Intercepts are the norm and mean that nothing has changed. Now, they must probe to find out what is different, wasting resources.
As to Zero's post, I believe that it makes some good points about Russia trying to turn the tables on the West. Russia wants to regain its place as a world power and is on the way to doing it.

Anybody who has been even remotely associated with military intelligence would know that these Tu-160' s are being monitored by every asset available 24/7.
Odds are that they were followed from take off to landing by a variety of methods.

Blackjacks are not stealth, and were probably allowed to approach that closely to help us gain intelligence on their routing, command and control communications, data stream, encryptions ect. Both sides play this game.

Originally posted by yellowcard
F-117s are slower but hardly uselsss, B-2s are not even in the same class as a BlackJack, a BlackJack is a lot more like the revised American B-1. Considering most of the B-2 is top secret, I doubt anyone could say for sure that it would "fail miserably"

All they have in common is top secret paint. Which could possibly have been compromised. If the Yugoslav Army can shoot it down, then that's saying something.