Caught On Video: Russian, NATO Jets In Near Standoff After F-16 Buzzes Defense Minister’s Airplane

 

A day after a Russian fighter allegedly flew within 5 feet of a US reconnaissance plane traveling over the Baltic Sea, Reuters reports that a NATO F-16 fighter jet returned the favor when it tried to improperly approach a plane carrying the Russian defense minister. The plane was traveling to the city of Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave along the Baltic coast, where Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu was scheduled to discuss security issues with defense officials on Wednesday. The NATO aircraft was warded off by a Russian Su-27 jet, according to RT.

In an accounting of the incident, Reuters notes that one of the Russian fighter jets escorting Shoigu’s plane had inserted itself between the defense minister’s plane and the NATO fighter and “tilted its wings from side to side to show the weapons it was carrying, Russian agencies said.” After that the F-16 promptly left the area.

1st large-scale exercise set in military air training area

Fighter jet training is planned for Wednesday and Thursday. (Photo: U.S. Air Force photo)

 

BISMARCK, N.D. — Military airplanes are taking to the skies this week for the first large-scale exercise in a training area over the Northern Plains.

The exercise in the 35,000-square-mile Powder River Training Complex is scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday. Bombers, fighter jets and refueling tankers will be practicing maneuvers in the airspace over the Dakotas, Montana and Wyoming.

America’s next superbomber to be shrouded in secret for years

 

 

Almost every aspect of America’s newest bomber is top secret, but experts predict the warplane will be very “stealthy,” packed with sensors — and able to deliver nuclear payloads anywhere.

The Pentagon this week announced Northrop Grumman as the winner of the much-anticipated contest to build the Long Range Strike Bomber, or LRSB, in a decades-long program that will likely end up costing in excess of $100 billion.

The Air Force wants 100 of the warplanes, which will replace America’s increasingly antique B-52s — originally designed in the 1950s — and its B-1 bombers that first saw action in the 1980s.

Air Force Flight Tests Nuclear ICBM

The Minuteman III came into service in 1970. The last nuclear weapon deployed was roughly in the early 90’s and most of America’s deterrent on land still runs on floppy-disc technology. Meanwhile, Russia and China are significantly modernizing their nuclear forces while increasing them in number.

 

Minuteman III warhead hits 4,200 miles away in Pacific

The U.S. military carried out a flight test of a nuclear-capable Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile on Wednesday, the Air Force Strike Command said in a statement.

The missile was launched from F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming and its inert warhead flew 4,200 miles to an impact zone near Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean’s Marshall Islands.