Look, up in the sky, it's a bird , it's a plane , it's a Russian Tu-154M

[packman]

The Russians are operating their Tu-154M aircraft configured for surveillance flights sanctioned under the Open Skies Treaty that allows member countries to conduct surveillance flights over each other's territory relatively unimpeded. The aircraft are equipped with imaging equipment with specific limitations and monitors from the country being surveilled are onboard the flights to make certain the party complies with the parameters of the treaty. This latest series of Russian Open Skies flights are being conducted out of Great Falls, Montana and are covering a slew of strategic points in the western part of the United States, including the highly secure Nellis Test and Training Range (NTTR) in southern Nevada, home of Area 51.

The mid-day flight on March 28th, 2019 appears to have originated out of Travis AFB, located near San Francisco, and continued on something of a highlights tour of American military installations in California and Nevada. It flew south over central California, passing near bases like Naval Air Station Lemoore and headed out over the Channel Islands. It then headed directly over Edwards AFB before meandering around Fort Irwin and on to Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake before hooking a right and heading toward Creech AFB in Nevada. It then headed north, directly into the NTTR—the most secure airspace in the United States along with Washington, D.C.


https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/27206/the-russians-just-did-a-fly-by-of-area-51

[Chin music]

1. Wish we knew when they fly over so I can set the field out back on fire with a big

FUCK YOU in burning letters.

[Farmer-Rick]

2. Nice of Traitor Trump to let Russian military surveill our entire country

Weird that the program was about to close down because Putin refused to follow the agreement. Then suddenly Trump revived it.

Weird with Putin threatening to put missiles in Cuba and with Russian troops in Venezuela, that Traitor Tump would let that little dictator have carte blanche to fly spy planes over the US. He certainly puts the word Traitor into the title Traitor Trump.

I wonder how much Kushner and the Trump organization got paid for the secrets Little Putin is collecting right now?

But no collusion......

[mitch96]

5. So when is he gonna give them the Grand Canyon?? jezzzzzzz.. nt

[PCIntern]

3. Do we get to fly over Russian installations like that?

"I'm so confused" - the grandfather in the film "Moonstruck"

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

8. Yes.

We already flew over Russia in February of this year.

[Farmer-Rick]

10. Yes, but we followed the agreement on what

type of spy equipment we were allowed to use. But not so much little Putin.

That's why the program was about to go under. Little Putin refused to follow the rules in the agreement. He's still NOT following the rules but Traitor Trump doesn't care.

[DFW]

4. Considering the safety record of the Tu-154, I'd get out of the way fast

Most of them still manage to get airborne somehow, but I swear, those planes are put together with scotch tape and Elmer's glue. I was once slated to go to Mongolia, but when I saw the onward flight from Moscow was on a Tu-154, I canceled the whole project.

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

9. Yep, me too

Russian maintenance standards is, well, pretty laughable usually. I really feel bad for the US personnel who have to fly with them as observers. Russian aircraft with a Russian air crew. No thanks.

[EX500rider]

15. Really not to bad a safety record...

Although obviously as they get older they get scarier to fly.

Since 1968 there have been 39 fatal incidents involving the Tu-154, most of which were caused either by factors unrelated to the aircraft, incorrect maintenance, or by its extensive use in demanding conditions. Also, few of the Tu-154 accidents appear to have involved technical failure. Almost 9% of all Tu-154 losses have occurred in Iran.
Number built 1,026
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-154#Incidents_and_accidents

I have flown on some very scary Air Uzbekistan planes, 30+ year old Yak-40's, literally bald tires on the landing gear.

[DFW]

17. The basic design hasn't changed much since 1968.

Plus, the Soviet Union was notorious for under-reporting/not reporting catastrophic accidents, especially when no foreigners were involved. I would take their figure of 39 with a grain of salt.

I've never been on a Yak, but I was once on an Ilyshin-62, the Soviet copy of the British VC-10, run by Cubana. We made it back to Havana in one piece, but we were told we were lucky to have made it at all, and that they were sending for a new aircraft, as the one we had taken off in was not airworthy.

[smirkymonkey]

6. Um, pardon my ignorance about these things, but what the hell are Russian surveillance planes

doing in our airspace? Especially touring our military installations? Is this a normal thing? Are we allowed the same privileges in Russia? Exactly WTF is going on here?

[Brother Buzz]

16. It's all spelled out in the Treaty on Open Skies (2002)

It's just a bit of 'trust but verify' transparency, and all that shit. And if it's any assurance, we have observers on board the flights to supposedly keep it on the 'up and up'. And, yes, we do the same.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_Open_Skies

[smirkymonkey]

19. Thanks.

Good to know. Still think it's a bad idea, considering the current circumstances.

"Both Russia and the United States have alleged that the other is violating the provisions of the treaty."

https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/defense/2017-09-27/us-russia-trade-charges-over-open-skies-treaty-compliance

[MineralMan]

7. Just use Google Maps and save money.

All of those places are on there, and you can zoom in on the satellite view.

[Farmer-Rick]

11. Google doesn't pick up the details the Russians are picking up.

There are places that are blurred out or you just can't get to on Google, especially military installations. But now Russia will have it all.

[MineralMan]

13. Perhaps. However, I visited several of the bases mentioned

in that article, including Andrews Joint Base, and zoomed in to see individual aircraft and even people on the ground. I saw no blurred out areas at all, after moving around on the zoomed map. Now, maybe there are such areas. I don't know, but I didn't see them. In any case, these flyovers are part of a reciprocal agreement between the two countries. No harm, no foul.

It's just not something that particularly bothers me, frankly.

[Farmer-Rick]

18. Well, keep looking

There are several blurred out or camouflaged areas throughout the US on Google so that you are not really getting the image that is really there.

Yeah, like we can trust Russia to stick to the agreements in the treaty cause Putin is just so reliable. I'm sure Trump will enforce the treaty agreements with little Putin. Not to worry. We can trust Putin.

[hunter]

12. It's a noisy beast of an airliner, a fuel hog...

... designed to operate in rough conditions.

I'll bet a lot of people heard it, not quite knowing what it was, attributing its distinctive noise to just another military jet.

I often go outside and look whenever I hear an unusual aircraft in the sky. (One of my favorites is the drone of a B-17.)

Most of Tu-154 accidents seem to be related to gross mismanagement, lack of maintenance, and terrorism, not any basic design flaws of the machine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-154

Electronic snooping has reached the point where even amateur electronic hobbyists can accomplish on a small budget feats that used to require multi-million dollar budgets and dozens of people.

From a military point of view I suspect the worst leakage is people using ordinary cell phones to chat about secret stuff, the kind of idiocy that's trickling down from our Commander in Chief.

It seems likely to me these Tu-154M flights are largely symbolic. Anyone doing highly sensitive military electronics shit knew they were about. If the Russians are truly interested in the data they collected they'll have to sift through a huge pile of garbage, much of it trolling, random noise, and misdirection.

Or maybe they record a cell phone call to some twisted sex chat line by someone important. But they don't need a plane to do that. The women at "1-900-Bleat-Like-a-Calf while I come!" are Russian.

[MineralMan]

14. When I was stationed at a small base on the Black Sea in Turkey,

The Russians did a very low altitude flyover with a TU-95 Bear bomber, no doubt equipped for electronic surveillance. It happened about dawn, when I was going to the mess hall to pick up donuts for the midnight crew. It was very low, very loud, and passed over the base and the operations area, and then made a 180 degree turn and headed back over the Black Sea. It was low enough for me to read the numbers on the plane.

I reported it, of course, immediately, but nobody was particularly surprised. Apparently, it had happened before. It did its reconnaissance pass and was gone before any reaction could have occurred. The Russians frequently fly near and over US installations that are near international waters. I assume we do the same, when we can.