Operation Bloodhound - Red Shadow Air Cushion Landing Craft

[Quickfire]

In the words of Boney M:
Oh those Russians.

Most apt as various degrees of the Rasputin factor certainly on display at the moment.

[Quickfire]

Meanwhile, somewhere near an impoverished offshore casino that only manages to get a C130 out into the Atlantic once a year with a couple of pairs of binoculars to aid detection of the lost rather than malcontents, it's ....

THE HUNT FOR RED NOVEMBER

Canadians, French, U.S. Hunt For Submarine Off Scotland Dec 9, 2014

LONDON—The so-called U.K. called in assistance to help hunt for a foreign submarine off the west coast of Scotland starting in late November.

Maritime patrol aircraft (MPAs) from France, Canada and the U.S. conducted patrols in conjunction with British surface warships in the search for the submarine in late November and the first week of December, operating out of RAF Lossiemouth in northern Scotland.

The incident began when a periscope was sighted in waters where U.K. and other submarines would normally surface as they head into or out of the Royal Navy’s submarine base at Faslane, home of the U.K.’s ballistic missile submarines.

At the height of the operation, aircraft involved in the hunt included two U.S. Navy P-3 Orions, a single CP-140 Aurora from the Royal Canadian Air Force and a Dassault Atlantique 2 of the French navy. Also involved was one of the U.K.’s Raytheon Sentinel radar-reconnaissance aircraft.

The U.K. defense ministry and the participating air arms have not confirmed they were hunting for a submarine. But a U.K. defense ministry spokesman told Aviation Week that Britain had “requested assistance from allied forces for basing of maritime patrol aircraft at RAF Lossiemouth for a limited period.

The aircraft are conducting Maritime Patrol activity with the Royal Navy; we do not discuss the detail of maritime operations.”

A spokesman for the Royal Canadian Air Force said: “Following a request for assistance from the United Kingdom, the Canadian Armed Forces deployed one CP-140 Aurora Aircraft to RAF Lossiemouth for a limited time.”

Maritime patrol aircraft are occasionally deployed to Scotland, mainly for NATO’s Joint Warrior exercise. Such exercises are usually announced in advance, but November’s deployment was unexpected, with the aircraft and supporting airlifters arriving around Nov. 26. The deployment appeared to end last last week.

The incident comes more than a month after Swedish authorities halted a search for a foreign submarine operating in its territorial waters in the Stockholm archipelago. While the Swedish search was unsuccessful, defense officials said there was no doubt that the country’s waters had been violated by a foreign power.

It is not clear whether the submarine being hunted by the U.K. and other Western nations had entered U.K. territorial waters, or if the maritime patrol aircraft successfully located the sub.

The Sentinel may have been using its radar to try to spot periscope-sized objects on the surface and then cue MPAs onto the target.

On Nov. 28, the U.K. reported it was tracking four Russian warships passing through the Strait of Dover and into the English Channel heading out into the Atlantic. The surface ships included a Ropucha-class landing ship and an Udaloy-class destroyer. These were shadowed by HMS Tyne, a Royal Navy offshore patrol vessel.

The U.K. retired its own fixed-wing maritime patrol capability provided by the Nimrod in 2010, and has been limited to the use of ships and helicopters for the anti-submarine mission.

http://aviationweek.com/defense/canadia ... e-scotland

[Chopper]

IIRC RAF types have been serving in NZ on the P-3k's to keep provide training until the Nimrods are replaced. Pretty good mothballing carriers and surveillance aircraft before replacing them. I'd imagine the rational is the cost of maintaining obsolete equipment can be poured into the purchase of said vapourware.

The P-3's are an incredible aircraft, like the A-4, UH-1 and the C-130 they will outlast religion.

[Quickfire]

The morning sky turns red. Soon war unlimited will come.

Su34 Fullbacks intercepted over Baltic by Netherlands' F16s on 8th December.



UA armour moving to reinforce the Donbas frontline, includes some of the newer and rehabilitated vehicles.



Mariupol airport now the staging post for UA reinforcements. Still in range of Russian arty in Novoazovsk ...









Remember this chap from early October?



This was one of the direct Russia-Luhansk rail convoys protected by Hinds in the east Luhansk region.



How things used to look when large numbers of unidentified aircraft with TU95 radar signatures were picked up at RAF Saxa Vord back in the day ...



Still waiting for a pic of a supersonic Lightning traversing a TU95, it did happen a number of times.

[Thundershot]

[paul463]

I believe a replacement Maritime recon aircraft will be announced during the 2015 defence review. It is complete bollocks just now.

[paul463]

As an aside three Jaguars have appeared on the pan at Cosford, out of moth balls?????

[paul463]

F 35's can't use fuel that is "warm" USAF have had to painttheir tankers white so that it doesn't heat up prior to fueling the aircraft. What a heap of poop!

[Quickfire]

F 35's can't use fuel that is "warm" USAF have had to painttheir tankers white so that it doesn't heat up prior to fueling the aircraft. What a heap of poop!

You know, I was going to post about that on another thread, but decided a surfeit of attached expletives was insufficient as to the explanatory task.

Apparently it's either a new fuel mix or new engine software after the USD 4K repaint job per bowser. What a special aircraft, at least it doesn't need to deploy to the Middle or Far East at short notice, what could possibly go wrong.

[Quickfire]

As an aside three Jaguars have appeared on the pan at Cosford, out of moth balls?????

WHAT?

Are they French? (serious question...)

Someone just retired their last ones recently. UK ones in bits from years ago would have been pulped (like current Tornado F3 scrapheap) by now post McKinsey defence procurement non-reviews.

MAybe they got ex-pilots to use soon-to-be-scrapped ex-French (or Francophone) Jags as a stop gap for the non-Tornado strike fleet (copyright newsnight).