Oscar01 wrote:Not that exciting as the Germans had earlier in November....
2 EF2000s were scrambled to intercept the russian AWACS version (forgot type). During interception, all of a sudden 2 SU-27s came along to "help" their mate. Later on they were joined by 2 Finnish F-18s (qra).
Also nice flight.....
Oz
Hi Oscar,
This is not exactly what happened.... The Germans started their mission as a tango scramble, but half way their sortie they were diverted as an alpha scramble. Their target was the Russian A-50 Mainstay, and the two Su-27's trailed at quite some distance behind. Nevertheless the Eurofighter pilots requested mission control to intercept the Su-27, but this was denied. They had to stay with the A-50 and only saw the Flankers in the far distance.
As far as my information goes, the German and the Finnish jets did not meet over the Baltic Sea, although the intercept took place near Finland / Estonia. How do I know ? I talked to the pilots right after their intercept....
I have photos of the jets taking off and landing, and the pilots posing in front of their jets.
Funny story: One of the pilots for that mission had been rescheduled to fly the next day, in favour of the commander, who wanted to do a fly-by for the photographers (e.g. us) himself. Needless to say that the reschedulled pilot was extremely =censored= of by this missed opportunity, while the commander could not whipe the smile from his face for two days about the bonus intercept.....
Below: On Tuesday 24 September Luftwaffe Eurofighters 30+26 and 30+40 from JG74 taxi out for a regular training scramble from Siauliai, Lithuania. Some 40 minutes later the mission will turn into an alpha scramble, and these two aircraft will intercept Russian AF A-50 Mainstay (51 red). Photo by Iwan Bögels / DAPPA
http://www.dappa.nl/alpha-scramble.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
