Wouldn’t it be rather hazardous to be flying directly behind a plane that has a sudden loss of control?
ISTR the British in WWII would destroy V-1s by placing their interceptor’s wing just in front of the V-1’s wing, and let the wingtip turbulence overcome the control surfaces of the V-1. I’m guessing the state of the art for keeping drones flying on autopilot has improved in the last seven-plus decades…
I thought they put their wingtip under the V-1’s and tipped it over.
Yes, having thought about it for a minute I concluded that it was probably a bad idea, due to debris flying towards the cockpit. Any part of an aircraft touching a rotating propeller sounds as though it could be catastrophic to the aircraft, though. The news release uses the words “collide”, “hit” and “struck”, so it seems there was definite physical contact, rather than it being wind vortices.
But you get in really, really good with your squadron leader.
Here’s a closer look at an Su-24. I can believe it when EUCOM say the pilots were unprofessional.
They must have shown “Top Gun” in Russia.
(Bolding mine)
An enemy aircraft? Is Russia at war with US?
If you want to argue that the Russian pilot destroyed the drone on purpose, then yes, that’s quite skillful. And maybe an act of war.
Otherwise, I’d say provoking an accident in international airspace is gross incompetence and proof that Russian pilots cannot be trusted to share the airspace with other aircraft.
I’ve heard - no cite - that such an approach was tried but the wingtip turbulence method was found to be safer, and that for many observers on the ground, the two methods looked similar, so it was often reported that wing contact was made when in fact it was not.
Take it for what it’s worth - my memory ain’t what it used to be.
definitely “par for the course for RU” …
2019;
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life and death of a schoolyard-bully …
I always wonder, why the US-ships (if they were upwind!) … did not go apeshit crazy with aggressive tear-gas or so …
You know we just did our monthly tear-gas drill when the RU destroyer came out of nowhere and sailed right into this REALLY NASTY cloud … we tried to warn them by blowing our horn several times - but they didn’t heed our warning …
.
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Same for the reaper-drone … they should come with detachable parts (anti-nuisance defense) … stuff like metal-chains and fish-net type of materials (heck, a pantyhose would do - stuff that could be sucked in by a MIG flying behind)
… really the mig flew by so close, part of the drone’s airframe got detached and later sucked into the MIGs engine. Our ambassador already arranged for flowers and a coupon-book for the pilots widow
Yes, and has been since at least 2016.
As to whether the pilot’s escalation was reckless on his part, don’t forget the likelihood that that’s exactly what he was ordered by his superiors to do.
Getting a windshield of anything at speed is a recipe for wrecking your own aircraft. We clearly don’t have all the details here, but playing chicken with something else in the air is usually not a good idea.
Yes. Very.
There have been accidents where too close a fly by an air force or navy jet (unintentional) has disassembled small aircraft in reality. Doing it deliberately, sure. It will work.
No timeline, but CNN says:
The US Defense Department is currently working to declassify imagery from the incident, Ryder said Tuesday. He also said that Russia has not recovered the downed drone.
I wonder what they can show without giving away details they don’t want public. Like maybe the drone has a rear looking camera in addition to the main camera.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this happened, but I wonder if part of it is throwing the civilian plane into a roll or dive that they can’t recover from.
interesting (obv. unconfirmed) data-point:
dairy of russian officer with deaths by day :
For closure, the story is “Hawk Among the Sparrows” by Dean McLaughlin. I remember it to from reading it many years ago.
Press on.
That’s possible, but I’m thinking of instances where a small airplane is turned into pieces of an airplane while in the air and not by impact with the ground. Certainly for WWI era airplanes the wake of a modern military jet could rip it apart.
seems that both sides are unable to keep up the current pace:
If it’s true that Ukraine is planning to mount an offensive in the near future, it would seem prudent to keep some ammo in reserve for the big push.
In the mean time, they are most likely issuing just enough ammo needed to hold the front.
US defense alleging the drone incident was not intentional, but just bad piloting.