Putin's Probing

Sir as an old cold war vet, I feel that every time we announce military budget cuts to the rest of the world, we start having our adversaries probing and testing for weak spots.

Some interesting commentary:
Conaway said in an interview. “Truth of the matter is we would have squashed either one of those [bombers] like baby seals.”

It seems like just training but with the tension that exists it might be unnecessary.

As an old hand at monitoring and dealing with these particular bombers - yeah, us Navy types dealt with them all the time at sea back in the day - more often than the Air Force ever thought about.

For some background: Without having read any recent articles about this particular fly-by I suspect these two pairs were on a basic navigational training with a side-job of Elint recording with the emphasis of navigational training. The Tu-95 / bear Foxtrot version is so reliable that we should be impressed with their continued usage - much like the venerated C-130. Since I don't know the precise unit these two pair derive from I will say for the record I suspect these two pair are actually TU-142F's as opposed to TU-95's. While this may seem to be a small difference - it has more to do with open ocean navigation / maritime operations than anything. Anyone who has completed an open ocean navigation course AND a land navigation course will immediately appreciate the difference. For those of you who have not had that distinction - let me say it amounts to different equipment onboard the aircraft and different training.

I also suspect there were two senior pilots/aircraft, each of which had one junior pilot/aircraft being trained - the senior of each wing being in control. While I'm at it....I'll bet there was at least one IL-78 tanker, but probably two on a rotating basis for in-air refueling. All in all, I would say this trip was a resounding success for the Russians.