I have been lead to believe (by the media) that the chinese were just basically hanging around our spy plane just because they can. This would lead me to believe that Wong Wai (or whatever his name was) tryed to buzz to close and bought the farm.
Then I got this thought - that the chinses mission was to fly ‘interference’ between our spy plane and their country. Thereby blocking our radar signal with their planes. Now this would lead me to believe that they had to fly close and a slight course change by either piolet could cause a collision.
Now this might be moved to IMHO, but here’s my general question - Does anyone know what exactly the chinese were doing and do you have any sources? (I’ll pass on any soures that have the disclaimer ‘if I tell you I would have to kill you’ or ones like that)
It’s just normal practice for any country. The US does it to any “enemy” planes [war planes, not civilian] that get close to the US or our navy ships. The idea is to meet the planes with our fighters to show that we could shoot them down if we wanted to.
The Chinese fighters just met the US plane to let the US know that the Chinese were “letting” them spy; if it were needed they could stop the spying by shooting down the plane.
The US would have done exactly the same thing had a Chinese spy plane come close to the US. The fast moving fighters would buzz the other plane; letting it know that the fighters were in control.
The bumping was an accident. No one will ever know what caused it. Civilian planes don’t get that close, but military ones do. Don’t blame it on the fighter pilot. He was doing what any other pilot in his situation would do. It could have been caused by bad luck, such as unexpected turbulance, rather than an error by the pilot. The “rules” are different than if he was meeting a civilian plane.
Is there any chance they were trying to block our radar (or whatever ‘scanning technology’) we are using by putting a plane between us (radar dish) and them (Chinese mainland)
I’m no expert on this but that’s never stopped me from speculating:
In theory this would work but in practice I think it’d be a bad idea.
Ever see the radiation symbol painted on the nose cone of some jets such as (I think) an A4 Avenger? The symbol is there for good reason.
I don’t know what types of radar that the spy plane in China sports but I bet anything it has would be much more highly powered than the relatively small dishes on fighter jets. Flying close to such a radar is probably a good way to ensure you never have children (or worse). I also imagine it would probably play hell with nearby electronics.
I remember reading somewhere that an AWACS plane can pump out enough energy to literally fry the electronics in nearby planes but that may have been a work of fiction I’m thinking of (Tom Clancy or some such author). Of course, the AWACS plane itself is specifically shielded from its own energy emissions.
Finally, not all spying is done by emitting radiation. A lot of spying is done by simply picking up what your target is broadcasting (passive listening). I’m not sure but I doubt a nearby plane would effectively block incoming transmissions (it might block a lower antenna leaving the tail and roof antennas un-obstructed). My guess is the spy plane does both active and passive listening.
k2dave, I don’t think that’s what was happening. An interesting theory, but very impractical. If that was their intent, they’d have to put the plane right up against each of our receivers, and their fighters are too small to accomplish this, as well as too unskilled. No, if their intent was blockage, there’s something called “jamming” (just like me yelling in your ear when you’re trying to listen to someone else across the room) which is much easier and safer. I don’t know if the PRC has an airborne platform that can accomplish this, but I’m sure they have something land-based. And btw, in case you’re curious about support for this, I’m what they call a subject matter expert.
And starfish, I’m hoping we do find out exactly what happened when our aircrew tells all. I’m pretty dang sure it was an accident, but I’m not sure that the PRC pilot wasn’t acting recklessly.