Forum: F-16 Spotting & Photography

Thanks for pics, StWarrior,

I'm interested in particular w/ the Mainstay photo #2. Was this on the return trip heading back up the coast of Baltic States? (Is there any public report of the actual flight path observed)?

And is that actual Baltic States land shown below a/c (e.g., Estonian or even Lithuanian islands)? If so, that would appear to be slightly more than an intercept over the Baltics.. rather an intercept over Baltic states themselves?? LOL.

I personally am troubled by these kinds of gamemanship encounters. It's clearly not innocent, and to have to scramble NATO fighters to do the intercept only makes the whole provocation/counter-provocation even uglier, IMO. I wish there was more diplomatic leadership within NATO/EU HQ to more effectively exploit and protest such unnecessary and challenging strategic sorties made recently, rather than relying on uni-dimensional intercepts. I.e., flip the situation around and better control the strategic capital exploited (or not exploited)... justifiably establish the rules and penalties. Whereas the actual physical encounter/intercept almost seems to be what Kremlin's mil command faction wishes to see... in order to establish and exploit their respective chess-playing/strategies?

Cool your jets, gents... Wink

I know.. more than 2 cents. My views.

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Geogen,

Luthuania media sources say that Mainstay was intercepted near the border of Latvian territorial waters. Picture looks like if everything happened near the Irbe Straight - entrance of Riga Gulf. Yes, those areas are perhaps the most dense populated in Baltics - Riga is the largest seaport city with approx. 1 million inhabitants, all coastline is comprised mostly of resort towns located very close to each other. Distance from Siauliai AFB is 70-80 nm to the probable point of interception, as you can see here:

http://www.wikimapia.org/#lat=57.308724&lon=23.2141113&z=7&l=24&m=b

There is no info about whether Mainstay was intercepted on either ingress or return route.

As for official NATO policy, as you can see Russian official behavior greatly depends on the policy of U.S. Presidential Administration. Obama rejected the missile defence plans, Kremlin presents this as their political victory. I don't think that Mainstay aircraft poses significant threat to our nations, such flight are more the PR actions than actual military might demonstration. Russia lacks AWACS aircraft in their Air Force, does not have the successful combat experience of their usage (remember last year events in Georgia - where complete muddle was in air asset coordination), those aircraft are dated themselves (India had to upgrade their Mainstay in Israel to keep up it's AWACS capability on Western levels).

Forum: F-16 Spotting & Photography

Baltic Air Police F-16s at Siauliai AFB, Lithuania