Poland intercepted a Russian bomber. "If the Russians wanted to, we wouldn't do it"

For example, fighter jets aid crews of civilian aircraft that have problems in flight, or respond to violations of our airspace, which could be due to a navigational mistake or method problems on board. With more dramatic situations, these could be, for example, hijacking aircraft. And this is 1 of the utmost poles.

What's the another guy's problem?

This is simply a political situation, namely that we are on the eve of the start of the enemy state's actions aimed at achieving operational or strategical objectives. In colloquially speaking, specified targets include, for example, dropping bombs on power plants, taking water, command points, etc. In specified a situation, we control on the ground to air duty. And this on-call thing should look like it's sealing the state's air border, just like it's sealing the country's land border.

How is this done in practice?

Spaces for hunting are being created along the state border. This could be, for example, the east border. About six hunting aviation work zones are created there. There are 8 on-call aircraft in each of these zones 24/7. These planes are there so that the enemy's air force, for example the strategical bombers of the enemy, can't get close adequate to let it to drop cargo on our territories. This is the main task of hunting aviation — pushing out threats, and thus securing what is simply essential to the state's tissue. And these are 2 poles.

SERGEI CHIRIKOV / PAP

Russian Su-24

"F-16 are absolutely insufficient to execute specified tasks"

But Thursday night we were dealing with something between them?

Yeah, due to the fact that there's quite a few grey between these poles. Polish Air Force may operate according to Polish normative papers and NATO normative documents. This is simply a situation where there is no war, but there is any uncertainty. That was erstwhile the war in Ukraine broke out. Then Polish, but besides another Natov planes overseen the boundaries of the alliance. Another situation is the dangerous maneuvers of enemy aircraft right at our airspace, as in this case.

What Polish aircraft pushed a Russian device out of our zone?

These were F-16s and we are back to the main problem here – the F-16s are absolutely insufficient to execute specified tasks, due to the fact that they are multitasking planes, not hunting planes. The point is, these planes don't have adequate energy for hunting. In colloquially speaking, they are incapable to fly so fast and so advanced as to push enemy machines out of the firing region of possible missiles or bomb drops.

So why did it work this time?

Because the Russian Su-24 is not a strategical bomber, but a tactical bomber, it means that it makes flights at comparatively tiny altitudes. specified an F-16 can be effectively affected.

What can't it be?

For example, if the Polish airspace had breached an airplane, MiG-31, MiG-25, Su-35 or Su-27 at 40,000 feet, then the F-16 would simply not have flown there due to the fact that it does not fly that high.

Everything is beautiful, nice, if we are dealing with a plane that flies at average altitudes, but if the Russian Federation actually wants to attack Polish infrastructure, they will surely not do so utilizing specified a Su-24, only with strategical bombers that will execute the flight in the group of their fighter aviation. It is their fighter aviation that will stone anything that could be a threat to their bombers. Even if their strategical bombers were flying without a fighter shield, which of course does not happen, our F-16 would inactive have problems to effectively blast and push these bombers.

What about our Patriot air defence systems?

One bullet for specified a strategy costs a million dollars, so we would have fired from it very quickly, which would have resulted in specified armageddon as we see in Ukraine, where Russian missiles massively fall into Ukrainian cities.

“I have no thought what the Polish decision-maker was doing”

What are the main differences between multi-purpose aircraft like F-16 and fighter aircraft?

The fighter planes are larger, have 2 engines, can fly advanced and fast, and additionally have large radars with much greater scope than multi-purpose aircraft radars. Multitasking aircraft is 1 that can carry out impact tasks and limited hunting tasks.

Radek Pietruszka / PAP

Polish F-16

Polish politicians, including those from the Ministry of Defence, assure us that we are perfectly secure, due to the fact that we have besides purchased the American F-35 and South Korean FA-50 to the American F-16.

I have no thought what the Polish decision-maker was doing erstwhile he was shopping. And I fishy that since I, who know aviation, is lost in this, I would be more lost to a statistical Pole.

The problem is that for 30 years we had a dividend of peace, that is, a situation where Russia was no longer a problem and China was not yet a problem. We only had 1 hegemon, the United States. There were only substitute or asymmetric wars, or 2 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan or the erstwhile Yugoslavia.

At that time NATO armies on good origin were auxiliary armies to the U.S. military. Then Europe fundamentally unified the fleet to 1 kind of aircraft, which was F-16. Of course, there were European states that had Typhoon or Tornado aircraft, but they were alternatively a decline after the old doctrine of old times. But the foundation of the NATO Air Force was F-16. In times of peace, he did well due to the fact that he had no worthy opponent, whether in the Yugoslav conflict or in the Iraqi and Afghan conflicts. It was equipped with large sensors, it became a flying impact strategy with very intelligent solutions.

But which are not adequate for wartime?

Already in 2014, erstwhile the war in Ukraine began, we pilots began to talk loudly that Poland should build air forces not for expeditionary activities, as an aid to the US, but capable of defending Polish borders. However, in any way Polish decision-makers continued to buy aircraft that filled only 1 niche.

It's multitasking.

Yes, due to the fact that combat aviation is divided into 2 types of aviation. 1 is hunting aviation, which in the integrated air defence strategy is intended to supply us with safety in the sense that we are safe from the air. The second kind is multitasking aviation, that is, combat support aviation. Simple, of course.

As a consequence of specified purchases, not another purchases, we enter a period of possible defensive warfare only with multitasking aviation. These are F-16 and F-35 aircraft, due to the fact that you gotta say that the F-35 is just an extension of the F-16 aircraft. But these are airplanes that can execute impact aviation tasks, but only in a limited way they execute fighter aviation tasks.

So why do we request 2 aircraft of 1 kind – older and newer?

That's right, countries like Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway quit F-16 in general and enter only F-35 due to the fact that this is the same section of multitasking aircraft. We have an F-16 that we're going to modernize for terrible money, and an F-35 that we bought for terrible money, and their maintenance will cost us terrible money too.

VALDA KALNINA / PAP

Fighter F-35

And we have the South Korean FA-50.

Yes, a plane that was expected to be fast and cheap, and it turns out that it will not be that fast, but besides more costly than many another aircraft of this class, due to the fact that we already hear that any certifications from the US will be needed for it. In total, we have about 128 aircraft, which are mid-low level aircraft and we inactive do not have fighter aircraft.

Returning to Thursday's event with the Russian plane Su-24, as I realize it, if the Russians wanted to hurt us, they would have utilized a completely different kind of machine, and that was a flight whose sole intent was to test our consequence systems?

This plane most likely took off from the Könives region and most likely planned a way to rise our consequence system, command, control or guidance. Most frequently with specified a breach of our space goes the full device of all systems of gathering information by the Russians – electronic intelligence, that is, obtaining information about our frequencies, etc. In specified cases, the eyes and ears of the Russian Federation open to gather all information on the NATO side, which then consists together.