Beriev A-50, Ilyushin Il-22, Sukhoi Su-24, Sukhoi Su-27, Sukhoi Su-34 and Tupolev Tu-160 aircraft, were photographed by the Finnish Hornets. First appearance of a Blackjack over the Baltic.
The Finnish Air Force has been quite busy lately intercepting and escorting Russian military aircraft flying in international airspace, over the Gulf of Finland and the Baltic Sea, in the vicinity of Finland’s airspace.
For instance, on June 14 and 15, several air assets, including Beriev A-50, Ilyushin Il-22, Sukhoi Su-24, Sukhoi Su-27, Sukhoi Su-34 and Tupolev Tu-160 aircraft, flew close to the Finnish airspace, forcing the Finnish Air Force to scramble its F/A-18 Hornet on QRA (Quick Reaction Alert) in order to intercept the Russian aircraft.
The photographs in this post were taken by the Finnish F/A-18 pilots during such intercept missions.
Beriev A-50 (Finnish Air Force)
An Il-22 escorted by a Su-27 Flanker (Finnish Air Force)
A pair of Fencers shadowed by a Finnish F/A-18 Hornet (Finnish Air Force)
Some glorious photos of two nuclear-capable Blackjacks flying off Scotland.
Russian Air Force Tu-160 Blackjack bombers are continuing flying long-range missions (for training or operative purposes) along the Atlantic route becoming more frequent visitors of airspaces near NATO countries in northern Europe than they were in the recent past.
Two such nuclear-capable bombers, flying in international airspace, were intercepted and escorted by RAF Typhoons in QRA (Quick Reaction Alert) during a long-range sortie on Sept. 22.
Two RAF Typhoons at RAF Lossiemouth (callsign Y5R11 and Y5R12) were launched to intercept and escort the Blackjacks as they “skirted” the British Isles heading southwest. The interceptors were supported by a Voyager tanker launched from RAF Brize Norton and E-3D AWACS from RAF Waddington. The “Lossie” Typhoons handed over the two “zombies” to the southern QRA from RAF Coningsby.
It’s not clear where the Tu-160s flew after they flew close to the British Isles but they were probably taken on charge by other interceptors scrambled from nearby NATO countries.
On Nov. 20, for the first time ever, two Blackjacks carried out a 13,000km round trip war mission taking off from a deployment base in Kola Peninsula: they flew off Norway and UK, around western Europe, entered the Mediterranean Sea via Gibraltar and, after meeting the Su-30SMs departed from Latakia, launched some ALCMs (Air Launched Cruise Missiles) against terrorist targets in Syria. Then, they entered the Syrian airspace and returned home via the eastern corridor: Iraq-Iran-Caspian Sea.
On the same day, Su-34 Fullbacks launched 16 sorties against ground targets in Syria taking off from Krimsk airbase, in Russia.
Interestingly, during their transit across Middle East, the Russian strategic bombers were escorted by Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force F-14 Tomcat, Mig-29 Fulcrum andF-4 Phantom jets whose prior mission to visually observe activity of Russian bombers inside the Iranian airspace, from their entry point to the exit point.
Military aviation historian and journalist Babak Taghvaee has prepared an interesting infographic that provides lots of details about the Russian strategic bombers missions to Syria as well as about the Iranian chase planes.
Click below for a higher resolution version of the file.
As you can see the Backfire dropped FAB-250 iron bombs from very high altitude: whatever they hit, they were probably not too worried about CEP (Circular Error Probability) nor did they have contraints because of potential collateral damage.
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