I got these pictures off of another military-related website. Enjoy.
Here’s the e-mail from the guy who took the pictures:
I took these pictures yesterday with my digital camera at 41,000′ feet over Switzerland heading down to Naples, Italy for some training. Since we are a military aircraft the foreign countries that have interceptor aircraft always ask if they can intercept us for training. We were asked by Switzerland if we could be intercepted by their jets for training and since we had no passengers we said of course. I always forget to take my camera, but not yesterday. Some great pictures.
beautiful pic. i didn’t realize countries ‘asked permission’ to intercept. makes sense, though…
yeah did they have to ask permission to intercept over their airspace? Is that a courtesy thing?
I was a C-141 pilot 1990-1995 and flew C-17′s 1996-1999. Over Europe, whenever the cockpit workload allowed, I would inform the military controllers that we were available for a training intercept. I never did get one, much to my disappointment.
Intercepting an aircraft (especially a civilian airliner) is about the equivalent of a police officer firing a warning shot at your car for training. They (the military radar controllers) do always ask before running an intercept for training. Flying two dissimilar aircraft in close formation poses an inherent risk–and to do so without the intercepted pilot’s knowledge could cause events to spiral out of control.
Of course if an aircraft is behaving erratically, indicates a hijacking, or wanders into restricted airspace–all bets are off. Post 9/11, I’m sure most governments have changed their rules making intercepts more common than in the past.
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