The Russians do this all the time. They are measuring our detection times . They time us from radar lock on to interception and report back on any variation. It is all very friendly, the pilots often recognize each other and send greetings.
It's President Bedpan playing cat-and-mouse games because his economy is suffering from sanctions re the Ukraine business. Just a bit of sabre-rattling, common enough during the Cold War period. As far as I know, the Russian planes have been in international airspace - just.
As far as I know, there is no radar out in the Atlantic. That`s why pilots have to call for oceanic clearance when they leave UK airspace. These Russian planes are a danger to civilian aircraft.
Well it isn't only Britain is the answer. Off the top of my head Norway and Lithuania have had similar incidents but there have been others. But the UK is likely to get a lot because of its position. The reason the UK picked this up was because the UK was the closest country. And of course they were meant to pick it up: that was the whole point: to get a reaction
The Russians do this all the time. They are measuring our detection times .
They time us from radar lock on to interception and report back on any variation. It is all very friendly, the pilots often recognize each other and send greetings.
Don't think there was anything particularly friendly about this and the Norwegian pilot who experienced a near miss with a Russian bomber wasn't laughing (and nor was his Russian counterpart I suspect)
Getting a reaction is the point of it - supposedly. It doesn't presage an actual attack.
Only of interest due to current situation. This game of cat and mouse, or more likely bear and whatever our planes are called now, has been going on for at least thirty years to my knowledge.
The above link describes the current trend: there has been a huge increase in these incidents (note the Baltic connection in the light of Mr Fallon's observation today)
So incorrect to say that it's just getting more coverage because of Ukraine
t's not just in the air,over the last few years there have been several well documented cases of un-identified submarines being detected in Scandinavian waters.
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