[url]http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020426-3530826.htm[/url]

Since Sep11th, Hell I haven't heard a story like that since about 92.  I guess I never really thought about it.

Ben

And the reason American government won't share any info is?

 This has been happening since the End of WWII.

In Europe the Game was The russians scramble fighters over the Iron Curtain and Nato scrambles fighters to intercept, back and forth once a week or sometimes twice for 50 years..

Ben

This is a non-news item.  Do you know how many U.S. bomber crews were shot down in Russian air space during the cold war?  Quite a few.

Keep it up Ivan:

[url]www.merkle.com/pluto/pluto.html[/url]

Interesting link, [b]Astrogoth[/b]!

2 years ago, I was talking to some Air Force intelligence officers in a bar.  We were talking about military stuff and the conversation drifted over to the Russian bomber interceptions that happened frequently in the 80's.  One of the officers said that F-15's have been fired upon by the tail cannons of some of those bombers back then.  That amazed me.

Ja, that makes you wonder what sort of nasty, secret, things our eggheads have stowed away in the dessert today.

Ha!  Who knew the makers of my favorite beer used to make nuclear engine parts.  Never saw that one on connections!

Mike

Dakota, you actually admit to drinking Coors? [;)]

"I'd piss Coors if I could"

Bears can fly pretty fast so for a big pig of a prop plane, about 570 mph.

I was on an A-3 in 1988 when we intercepted a Bear F (Maritime) a couple hundred miles off the coast of Purto Rico.  It was heading for Cuba. Lots of middle finger waving going on there.

[url] http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/bomber/tu-95.htm[/url]

BEAR H - TU-95MS -- The Tu-95MS aircraft is based on the Tu-142 and thus differs in a number of details from the TU-95. The nose of the Tu-95MS is similar to that of the Bear-C and Bear-G, but with a deeper, shorter radome, cable ducts running back along both sides of the fuselage. It lacks the 178-cm forward fuselage plug of the maritime Tu-142, and retains the shorter fin and horizontal, undrooped refuelling probe of prevoius bomber variants. The rear gun turret is a new design, with a single twin-barrelled GSh-23L cannon in place of the pair of single-barrel NR-23s carried on earlier models. After carrying out successful tests, the first of which was in September 1979, series production started in 1981. With the reopening of the BEAR production line, the Soviets began producing a new, upgraded variant of the BEAR turboprop bomber, thereby increasing their long-range bomber force. This entirely new variant of the BEAR bomber - the BEAR H - became the launch platform for the long-range Kh-55 [AS-15] air-launched cruise missile. The initial version carried Kh-55 air-to-surface missiles located in the bomb bay on a catapult. This was the first new production of a strike version of the BEAR airframe since the 1960s. With the BEAR H in series production, the decline in the inventory of BEAR aircraft, characteristic of the late 1970s, was reversed. By 1988 BEAR H bombers were regularly observed simulating attacks against North America.

BEAR H6 - TU-95MS6 -- The version designated as TU-95MS6 aircraft carried Kh-55 air-to-surface missiles located in the bomb bay on a rotary launcher.

BEAR H16 - TU-95MS16 -- The TU-95MS16 carried six missiles inside the fuselage and 10 missiles underneath the wings. Three underwing pylons are fitted under each inner wing panel, the outboard pair carrying three missiles and the other two single missiles.

[img]http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/bomber/bear-h1.jpg[/img]