Not Sixes, but a familiar face - TU-95 Bears (Read 1,009 times)

Not Sixes but an old interception "friend" of them in a way... TU-95 Bears. Here being intercepted by a Norweigan air forces F-16s.





If you want to see more of this, here's a link to a page, all in Russian though:
pilot.strizhi.info/2007/01/26/2038#more-2038

This is a good video of a TU-95 training mission from Engels airbase, Russia (7 min+). It shows Prelaunched, T/O, interior views, an F-16 intrception from their viewpoint, landing and recovery at night. Big thumbs up here for it. You will need to download it. Not to worry, it is safe. You can find it HERE. Sorry no Sixes on that blog. Vid here if ya missed the link:
www.aviapedia.com/bombers/tu-95-video

Note the festivity of excercise in the vid. This was very common. The Russians/Soviets tended to treat all excercises with fanfare and celebration. Bands and honor guards were standard during the event to rally Nationalistic pride. I don't mean this as a critcism, but actually a compliment. Their military honored the missions of the forces.

As an Avionics guy on Sixes and other aircraft I was quick to note the lack of more modern instrumentation in the Bomber for the time of the video. In the 70's at Andrews I got a quick glimpse of a few Soviet cockpits, an Ilyushin series multiengine ship. The same was true with it. Very spartan and focused on function, nothing else. Also note the amount of effort the pilot seems to need to maintain link during refueling. That makes me wonder about the capailities of any flight control assist systems.

Enjoy!

AJ - Da Ole Guy