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Turkey scrambled four F-16 fighter jets on Sunday to intercept Russian Il-20 reconnaissance warplanes flying along the country’s Black Sea coast, news agency PzFeed reported.

The Russian Defense Ministry declined to comment. The Turkish government has not released any information about the reported incident.

http://en.ria.ru/military_news/20131103 ... eport.html

4 F-16's to go after that? I guess the Turkish aren't messing around.

The Il-20 is also refereed to as an Il18 "Coot", unless you're talking about the 1940's era plane that never saw action.

It's an Il-18 variant, indeed. NATO code name "Coot-A". It is sometimes also referred to as "Il-18D-36 Bizon".


Source: Wikimedia

There are not many news about today's incident. Other sources speak of 2 Turkish F-16. All sources suggest that more than 1 Russian aircraft has been intercepted.

Rumors suggest that the Russian aircraft headed towards Bulgarian airspace, after which the Turkish fighters ended their pursuit.

None of the involved countries has commented on the incident yet.

Guess I shouldn't be surprised there could be issues there among countries, but I've always thought of the Black Sea as pretty much Russia's playground (with that huge naval yard at Sevastopol, even though some of it is Ukrainian).

I wonder how far out they intercepted those Russian planes? They shod be able to see them coming from at least 30 miles away with all that smoke.

Typical ELINT platform, comparable to the RC-135 Rivet Joint. The gear aboard that aircraft likely is worth many times what the airframe is worth. But for the job it's doing, you don't need anything very elaborate, all you need to do is put that important gear in the air somehow.

Don't make fun of it, the most important bomber aircraft for most Western air forces are probably older than that plane.

The Russians have Coot-A's?

gkirk wrote:The Russians have Coot-A's?

I admit it, I laughed.

This makes me miss playing Jane's F-15.

Is that Bondo spread all over the top with a putty knifE?