Julian Bray writes: I've so far refrained from commenting on here as yesterday at 9:30 am (UK time) I did a live very early morning comprehensive round up of all the current strands concerning the shooting down of the Russian SU jet by Turkey on the RT TV news programme, and hopefully the multi million world TV audience, will consider it was a fair and balanced report.
Something the florid faced UK based 'Russian Expert' plastered all over the ITN bulletins might like to dwell on. When I tuned into ITV News, I've really never heard such a slanted, unchallenged polemic, (and repeated later) that seemed to date back to the 60's during the darkest days of the Cold War.
The fact that America has now backed the Russian view that the Jet was over Syria is awkward ( admittedly it did pass over Turkish airspace - a land peninsular - for some 17 seconds) but I do think President Putin has this time the right idea; he's just told Russians not to holiday in Turkey or even visit it.
Using an economic cosh against Turkey, and possibly taking out the ISIL controlled oil pipeline to Turkey ( who allegedly seem to be financially propping up ISIL with 'under-the-counter' purchases of oil ) would complete the retribution and save the hopes of further building a strong coalition to tackle ISIL.
In practical terms Russian President Putin has now ordered state-of-the art air defence missile systems to be deployed at a Russian air base in Syria following the downing of a Russian warplane by Turkey, a move that raised the threat of a military confrontation between the NATO member and Russia.
The S-400 missile systems, which will be sent to the Hemeimeem air base in Syria's coastal province of Latakia, located just about 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of the border with Turkey, are capable of targeting Turkish jets with deadly precision. Consider that if Russia shot down a Turkish plane, NATO would be required to intervene...Normally when challenging a war plane that has 'strayed' into your airspace, the defending jet will try several different ways of chasing off the errant intruder: By making visual signals- cockpit to cockpit, wing waggles, radio communication, rolling over to display the missiles carried, firing warning shots, electronically locking on and off and finally if all else fails firing a weapon.
The Turks say they warned the Russian SU Jet ten times. Something I find difficult to reconcile, then and only then, fired on the Russian SU, two Russian pilots bailed out. Clearly Turkey had a right to defend its airspace, and Russia has been known to test out national boundaries, often resulting in defending warplanes being scrambled and 'words of advice' offered.
But with intensive multinational air strikes in the region being carried out around the clock and with some very heavy weaponry deployed, a measure of diplomacy clearly has to be exercised, but at the same time a high level of communication and sharing of military intelligence is required.
Short of banging a few heads together perhaps someone will broker a more rational way of operation and the real enemy targeted?
Russian JetJULIAN BRAY +44(0)1733 345581, Aviation Expert, Journalist, Broadcaster, Aviation Security & Airline Operations Expert, Travel / Maritime & Cruise Industry, NUJ, EQUITY, LIVE ISDN LINK, Broadcast ISDN COOBE ++44 (0)1733 345020 (ALL CODECS) e&oe Old faithful NOKIA: 07944 217476 iPhone 0743 530 3145 www.aviationcomment.com Contrib. Account #104764 53 FEED: http://feeds.feedburner.com/BraysDuckhouseBlog
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