The F-18 isn't exactly a lightweight. Still pisses you off though that the defunct Avro Arrow would still trump pretty much all modern day fighters in speed and maneuverability.
Russia also recently sent ships to Cuba (their old Cold War days ally). They also went to Venezuela and Nicaragua....two other anti-US countries. They are probably just trying to "make friends with Latin America again.....but, in doing so, they are making moves towards US waters that are considered "defiant". Russians ships have passed through the Panama Canal for the first time since WWII. Even though the US military says the moves are not considered threats, they are keeping a close eye on the situation. Shit's goin' down I tells ya!!
LOL the Bear, isn't that the one with the dual props on each engine? We probably heard the fucking thing before we found it on radar.
Yep that's the one, the dual props counter-spin or something ( I fucking love the military channel ) and it howls like a motherfuck. Apparently submarines were tracking these things in flight just by listening
The underwater listening network set up by NATO (devices running on the floor of the ocean out in the Atlantic which feed data to land based stations) meant to track Soviet subs actually picked up the noise of those planes flying in the air. That is pretty damn noisy.
The Tupolev Tu-95 (Russian: Туполев Ту–95) is the most successful and longest-serving Tupolev strategic bomber and missile carrier built by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. USAF/DoD reporting name "Type 40"[1], NATO reporting name "Bear"[2]. * 16 February 2009 — Tu-95MS was intercepted by CF-18s when approaching Canadian airspace.[37]
Side note: There's groups looking at finding the old Arrow's. Hopefully they'll be on display in the next few years.
It would be interesting to see how something like the Cold War would have gone down with today's access to info/interwebs. CNN was a novelty back in the day of waiting for the nukes to fall.