Bones flew over Poland, Romania and Ukraine once again with Polish AF F-16 escort, today. Take a look at these splendid photos.
Two U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancers, from the 28th Bomb Wing, flew over Poland for the second time in 18 days, as part of a long-range round trip mission from their homebase at Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, on May 29, 2020.
The BONEs (as the Lancers are commonly dubbed – from B-One) have certainly become the most visible heavy bombers in the U.S. Air Force: as already reported, the supersonic bombers have been involved in multiple long-range missions around the world; widely advertised (and in some cases, trackable) global reach sorties that have seen the B-1s fly from their homebases in Continental US to both the Pacific region and, often, to northern Europe.
Last night, the Lancers, flying as “BONE 41” (originally launched as a 3-ship, with one B-1 probably acting as spare) were tracked along the way by means of their radio comms as well as the movements of their support tankers.
#MOVEMENT BONE 41 flight (3xB-1Bs) airborne and look as if they may be going trans-Atlantic again for another Global Power mission. Could be an interesting and late night in the radio shack #AvGeek #RadioGeek #MilMonWorld https://t.co/QU2PXwnMRk
— Military Monitoring World 📡 (@MilMonWorld) May 28, 2020
As happened last time (on May 11), the supersonic bombers were escorted by the Polish Air Force that dispatched two MiG-29 Fulcrum as well as four F-16C/D Block 52+ aircraft from Poznan Air Base, including one with a photographer, that took some incredible shots of the “package” flying over Poland on a pretty sunny day. Indeed, as commented by this Author in a previous article about the B-1 mission over Sweden: “For sure, along with the opportunity to train B-1s aircrews to carry out +30-hour sorties such missions also provide an opportunity to take some nice “group shots” like those included in this article.”
In May alone, the 28th Bomb Wing at Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, has carried out BTF (Bomber Task Force) Europe missions over the Baltic, Poland (twice) and the Nordic region. Not bad.
During the very same mission, the B-1s also integrated with Romanian fighters:
Side by side / Two B-1B @usairforce bombers have flown over Romania today during a training exercise alongside F-16s and MiG-21 Lancers Romanian Air Force. Photos: ROAF. @TheAviationist @cencio4 @CivMilAir @MIL_Radar @MilitaryTimes pic.twitter.com/daI9p8DzEI
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— Aeronews (@AeronewsGlobal) May 29, 2020
and also Ukrainian Air Force Su-27s and MiG-29s:
USAF B-1B trained with Ukrainian Su-27 and MiG-29.@Aviation_Intel @TheAviationist @Defence_blog pic.twitter.com/Vp6M6O9ZHI
— Ryan Chan 陳家翹 (@ryankakiuchan) May 29, 2020
