...lest your heads explode.
Heh. I remember when Fort Leavenworth had nukes... Nike-Hercs to shoot down Rooskie bomber streams!NORAD Plans Exercise With Russian Air Force
From a North American Aerospace Defense Command News Release
PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo., Aug. 3, 2010 - The Russian air force and the North American Aerospace Defense Command will conduct their first cooperative air defense exercise, NORAD officials announced.
Russia's Federal Air Navigational Service and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration also will be involved in the exercise, officials said, along with the military air operations centers at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, and Khabarovsk, Russia.
The exercise, named Vigilant Eagle, will take place next week, and it involves Russian, Canadian and U.S. personnel operating from command centers in Russia and the United States. It's authorized under a cooperative military agreement that tasks NORAD -- a binational U.S. and Canadian command -- and the Russian air force to conduct a "live-fly" exercise for up to five days, officials said.
It will consist of two international flights: one originating in Alaska and traveling to the Far East, followed by one originating in the Far East and traveling to Alaska. Both flights will follow the same route, officials said.
In the exercise scenario, a U.S.-flagged commercial air carrier on an international flight has been taken over by terrorists, and the crew will not respond to communications. The scenario creates a situation that requires both the Russian air force and NORAD to launch or divert fighter aircraft to investigate and follow the airliner.
The exercise will focus on shadowing and the cooperative hand-off of the monitored aircraft between fighters of the participating nations, officials explained.
Airborne warning and control aircraft from Russia and the United States will be involved, along with fighter-interceptor aircraft and refueling aircraft from both countries.
FWIW, the routes to/from Asia out of PANC put you in easy visual range of the Kamchatka Peninsula...and we often overfly same.
Now, what you're gonna do to a hijacked airliner depends on the country you're from. Personally, I'd probably be safer if I was a Russian getting taken over and flying into the US ADIZ (See KAL 007).
A step in the right direction.
I don't think anyone's unhappy, Mcart.
Just bemused, considering many of us spent our adult lives staring them down.
While at Boca Chica it was almost a past time to keep a look out for planes that may and or may not have came from Cuba with stars on it heh
So yeah, I find it vaguely amusing and somewhat saddening. Bemusing that the world has changed so much and some what saddened that something in our lives is truly written down in history books, something our kids will only read about.
Sorry for the diatribe, just remembering the "good" ol days ;)