U.S. fighter planes intercepted two Russian bombers flying unusually close to an American aircraft carrier in the western Pacific during the weekend, The Associated Press has learned.
A U.S. military official says that one Russian Tupolev 95 buzzed the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz twice, at a low altitude of about 2,000 feet, while another bomber circled about 50 nautical miles out. The official was speaking on condition of anonymity because the reports on the flights were classified as secret.
The Saturday incident, which never escalated beyond the flyover, comes amid heightened tensions between the United States and Russia over U.S. plans for a missile defense system based in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Such Russian bomber flights were common during the Cold War, but have been rare since.
The bombers were among four Russian Tupolev 95s launched from Ukrainka in the middle of the night, including one that Japanese officials say violated their country's airspace over an uninhabited island south of Tokyo.
If we assume they aren't carrying heavy payloads, at cruising speed of 440km/h and range of about 10,500km without tanking, Bears can fly for about 23 hours or so. From Ukrainka, assuming some loiter time and what appears to be indirect flight paths, the Russians appear to be flying between 14 - 18 hour missions.
I don't know what the peacetime rate of flight hours per pilot is for bomber pilots in the US, but I imagine if these pilots are averaging 16 flight hours per mission and flying 2-3 missions a month, I'd be curious to know how that stacks up with US peacetime numbers. I do wonder though, does Russia have more planes than qualified pilots, or would the opposite be true considering it has been several years since they have had funds for developing new pilots.
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