Looking at a map–or better yet, a globe–the most direct route from Missouri to Afghanistan goes right smack across Russian airspace (not to mention the airspace of several former Soviet republics in Central Asia). Any flight path which went around Russia would seem to add thousands of miles to the trip, and would probably send us through other problematic areas, like Iran.
So–have we gotten permission from Russia to use its airspace? Or from some other set of unlikely countries?
Or is it a case of “Hey, it’s a stealth bomber, so who cares whose airspace we fly through?”
What about their path over the continental U.S.? Any chance of walking out to my front yard and watching them fly overhead? I’d think that would be an interesting site.
Here is the shortest route from Whiteman to Kabul International. According to this calculator they would take a NNE course out of Whiteman (015 degrees), if they followed this route. Looks like the easiest deviation to avoid Russian airspace is to the west over eastern Europe, although it looks as if it would add significantly to the length of the flight.
Yeah, I’ve got my high-tech Great Circle Route Mapping Device (a globe and a piece of dental floss).
I guess we could swing west over Europe–looks like that would mostly put us over NATO, or at the very worst countries that are trying real hard to get into NATO these days. At some point, though, we’re still going to have to swing over part of Russia, or through Iran, or over the Transcaucasian Republics–how are our relations with Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan these days? (Not to mention Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.)
Georgia - Good. President Shevardnadze is an old pal from Soviet days. They want to become part of NATO & the EU, but civil war has been an impediment.
Azerbaijan - Pretty good. The US has been pushing to have an oil pipeline from the Caspian built through here, Georgia, and Turkey, thus avoiding Russia and Iran.
Armenia - Pretty good. They want to keep their noses clean to maintain IMF support for their economic plan. Might like to play the religion/culture card to get Western support in their border dispute with Azerbaijan.
Kazakhstan - OK. Not a true puppet state of Russia, but they know which side their bread is buttered on. So if we can’t fly in Russia, we’re not likely to get much further with Kazakhstan.
Turkmenistan - Not so great. They are the odd man out among the -stans which border Afghanistan (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Pakistan) in not having any recent military agreement with the US (that we know of). In 1999 they signed an agreement to assist in the Caspian pipeline, but this year they seem to be siding with Iran in an effort to block it. A country with 4.6 million people, mostly desert, and a capital by the Iranian border…Influence from Tehran is probably responsible for their neutrality.
Forgot the disclaimer. This is my general perception of these countries, hopefully someone more knowledgable will be along to clarify and correct some of these.
they are not invisible, meaning they could be spotted by russian pilots, etc.
friend or not, one nuclear power flying bombers unannounced over anothers territory would create a MAJOR international incident, severely damaging ties between the two countries, possibly starting a war, and surely damaging the “anti-terrorism” coalition
The Soviet anti-stealth program was started in late 70-s in cooperation with (then) Chechoslovakia and several others OVD countries. I don’t know much details, other than (in)famous ‘Tamara’ anti-stealth radar, being produced in Czech Republic.
Several sources claim that F-117 was shot down by Yugoslavian air-defences after a couple of Tamaras were smuggled from Czech republic, after clandestine operation by Yugoslavian intelligence.
And, of course, Russian missile system S-300 is also capable of detecting stealth-aircraft using triangulation technique.
HMMMMMMMM…this sounds like a question a TERRORIST would ask. planning on doing some plinking with your 20 gauge shotgun MEBuckner? j/k
on another note, why the hell would we fly all the way from the continental US to afghanistan for one bomb drop? Granted, war is never very cost effective, but that is just ridiculous…What are we talking here, a 17 hour flight one way to avoid russia?!? I thought that was why we being so nice to Pakistan all of a sudden…So we could use their airspace.
The B-2 requires very specialized support and that support has been built up at one air base. The effort required to move all that support to, say, Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean (where B-1s and B-52s hang out on one end of a shuttle run) is deemed far too much work compared to simply making the pilots sit in the cockpit for an extended period. (Moving the support for the airplane outside the U.S. also increases exposure to sabotage and espionage–the B-1 and B-52 are sufficiently like “regular” aircraft that they do not have either the special support issues nor the special secrecy issues that the B-2 has.)
Bomber pilots have been making extended flights since the end of WWII and part of cockpit design and pilot training includes efforts to ameliorate discomfort on long flights–not that it has become an easy task.
you are kidding me? our boys really DO have to fly from the US to afghanistan and back!?!? suddenly i have a whole new respect for the air force. i need to check out jane’s and see what kind of fuel mileage those babies get.
Looking back over the thread, I see no one has actually stated this: I think the general consensus is that we probably are flying over Russia, with their permission. It’s a win-win situation. For them, it’s lotsa help to support their old allies in the Northern Alliance, so they can once again be big players in Afghanistan, driven these days more by their regional fear of radical Islamists instead of the cold war politics that motivated them in the 1980s. Plus, the US owes them for this concession, plus they can spy on one of our most advanced aircraft and (probably) its refueling.
