>

Standard separation is 5 miles and 3000ft. That's pretty close.
10 feet?! That’s uh, really close. >

"Well, you see, I was inverted..." >

Keeping up relations. >

I was giving him the bird.  You know? The Bird! >

Yeah, I know the bird, Goose >

what always bugged me about that was that at what point between You've Lost that Loving Feeling and Yeah, I know the bird, Goose -  does Charlie get introduced to Goose as Goose.  
when i saw it as a kid..i was like..wait, they know each other.  
Also when i was kid watching ESB in the theatre as kid - why are the  speeders flying head first into the AT-ATs instead of the sides or rear where there are no cannons
I was basically comic book guy at age 8 >


what always bugged me about that was that at what point between You've Lost that Loving Feeling and Yeah, I know the bird, Goose -  does Charlie get introduced to Goose as Goose.
when i saw it as a kid..i was like..wait, they know each other.

Top Gun instructors have to know their students’ names and call signs.  I think the whole point of the bar scene was that she knew who THEY were before they knew who SHE was.  

Also when i was kid watching ESB in the theatre as kid - why are the  speeders flying head first into the AT-ATs instead of the sides or rear where there are no cannons

The neck joinery of the AT-AT is not fast enough to track flying targets.  It mostly exists as an armored transport for troops and ground vehicles.   A better question is why aren’t stormtroopers hanging out of the doors firing on Luke as he plants that detonator? >

I like the Robot Chicken explanation that Luke's lightsaber cut right into the bathroom, and the grenade he chucked in there caught a stormtrooper on the can so he couldn't get rid of it in time. >

This is canon >

Head canon >

Seems like a lot of people are confused about why this was allowed to happen.  The American plane in question is an RC-135, probably a Rivet Joint conducting a freedom of navigation mission.  RC-135s are unarmed, large aircraft that carry upward of 20 people sometimes.  They do not have missiles, guns, or other offensive capabilities, so no, the RC-135 would not just shoot the J-11 down.  RC-135s operate in international waters and therefore do not carry any weapons that would make them a legitimate military target to attack.
The reason RC-135s are intercepted is due to the reconnaissance they do, which other countries generally don't appreciate.  The intercepts are fairly common, but Chinese and Russian pilots, recently, have had a streak of unprofessional and dangerous behavior when doing the intercepts. >

And then the EP-3 was confiscated for some time, for intelligence reasons >

But not before the EP3 crew destroyed ~~all~~ most of the sensitive equipment on board.
EDIT: got it, thanks. This is what happens when you post before coffee. >

I knew a guy tangentially involved with that whole affair, and he said the crew was running through the fuselage literally shooting the equipment and lighting everything on fire when the Chinese got there. "So, anyways, I started blasting..." >

I was a radar operator in the Marine Corps, and some of the sub-systems contained classified technology and we would have radios and networking stuff that had encryption keys so we always had procedures for protecting or destroying the sensitive stuff should our position be overrun. All the electronics had 'Zero' buttons on them that with a single push would wipe out all the data and the for the equipment there was a fire ax and sledge hammer to disassemble the rest of the stuff. Also thermite grenades would be present if there was actual risk, although I had never seen one. >

Imagine some trainee hitting the zero button during training. YOU ARE THE DUMBEST. SON. OF. A. BITCH. >

This happens all the time. The zeroize button is pretty easy to hit but causes no real harm unless you’re in a place where you can’t get it reconfigured quickly. >

I assume it's just volatile memory and probably FPGAs?
Wonder how long it takes to reconfigure/ boot >

Depending on what level of key, it can be as simple as walking down the hall and getting a new one or waiting a day to a couple weeks for a new one to be sent. Then you just load it up in a couple minutes and you're running again. Biggest issue is the higher ups riding your ass, asking when things will be running again. >

tips almost touched >

This is military equivalent of when boxers do the pre fight promo and they stand 1inch from each others face >

Now kiss >

**Kith >

U.S. jet came within 10 feet of Chinese aircraft - Chinese military >

But were any fingers given? >

that's a negative Ghost Rider >

If it was possible to show someone your bare ass (a full moon) from the cockpit, would that earn you the call sign Werewolf? >

Kick the tires and light the fires, it's about to be a blue moon tonight. Aroooooo! >

put your oxygen mask back on. >

I can’t breathe >

"I'm not touching YoU!" >

One of the more dangerous of sibling games to play while flying a jet >

They started the gay chicken contest >

Keep your friends close and your enemies approximately 10 feet.
Ancient Chinese Proverb >

"The art of warfare is deception and deception is flying within ten feet of an unarmed aircraft for some fucking reason."

Sun Tzu >

Sun Tzu said that.  And I'd say he knows a little more about flying within 10 feet than you do, pal - because he invented it!  And then he perfected it so that no man could best him in the ring of 10 feet! >

The Russians did it while holding the phone instead of the stick. >

is that a hand-held GPS used in the cockpit?!  
russia military budget really looking stretched out eh? >

I've seen cockpit videos from the Ukraine war (can't remember which side) where they have iPads with moving maps in the cockpit. >

Nothing wrong with using an iPad for navigation... Unless you don't want to be tracked. >

Yeah. Many, many pilots have iPads loaded with all the navigational charts on it. It is an app called Foreflight. Airline pilots use it a lot, charter pilots use it a lot, crop dusters, private pilots, etc. 
Source: I am an aircraft mechanic so I have been in a LOT of planes. >

Just curious: what would happen if a gunner just thought, “You know what? Fuck you.” And lit him up?
Would it really be war? Or would both sides bullshit and claim it an accident? >

Both things have happened in the past.  At least in the same vein. >

For more information, see this similar scenario that played out in 2001
A US military plane was intercepted by Chinese fighters, and they collided. Chinese airman died, US Military crew made emergency landing and were detained. Eventually both nations released intentionally ambiguous reports admitting “sorrow” to the other nation for what happened but neither ultimately taking responsibility. >

What happened to the US plane? I’m wondering about protocol when there’s sensitive equipment on board. >

It was a sigint plane so it had even more equipment and materials on board. IIRC, when the decision was made to land on Hainan they immediately began destroying read-outs and modules. Even after landing they didn't leave the aircraft for a while as the Chinese were outside on the runway. For all that they did destroy, the PLAN still gathered insight into US sigint capabilities. It's been a while but I believe the notable piece of intel was the US's ability to track Chinese subs accurately.
Edit: copy-pasted from wiki: "For the next 26 minutes, the crew of the EP-3 performed an emergency plan which included destroying sensitive items aboard the aircraft, such as electronic equipment related to intelligence-gathering, documents and data. Part of this plan involved pouring freshly brewed coffee into disk drives and motherboards and using an axe from the plane's survival kit to destroy hard drives.[14] The crew had not been formally trained on how to destroy sensitive documents and equipment, and so improvised. As a result of the destruction, the plane's interior was later described as resembling "the aftermath of a frat party".[11]" >


"the aftermath of a frat party"

Hell yea brother. >

Must've been a fucking frantic 26 minutes >

Probably felt like 10 >

2023 really bout to start off with another war smh >

Sure as hell way too close, but I do not see it come as close as 10 feet in this video. So is it dramatic military hyperbole or just me not having proper frame of reference? >

Maybe they got closer off video. In this video it looks closer to ten meters haha >

Probably did. This is a common incident in spycraft, this is how you down intelligence gathering ops without directly starting an international incident through a proper attack. It's happened many times before, and the way it's being portrayed is part of the "shroud". >

They were talking about this sort of stuff happening all year on Face the Nation this past weekend.  That Chinese jets were even releasing anti-missile defenses which are silvery shards of stuff that could easily be sucked into jets.  Something is bound to happen. >

Chaff >

Diplomatic intentions aside... Thats... worryingly close. >

It’s far too close for safety.  They could even have crashed the aircraft into the ship. >

Aww did someone in China watch the first Top Gun? lol >

I couldn't make heads or tails out of the trailer.  I didn't see anything that looked like bad VFX but then again how can you see much of anything with all the quick cuts and shit?  I was more miffed at not knowing what the fuck the movie was even about after watching the trailer.  It looked like a bunch of air force people performing aerial masturbation for each other... and that's it? >

Well this is the director’s first ever movie, all he did prior was produce promotional/propaganda pieces for the Chinese military. Honestly that’s what the movie looks like, a bunch of 1 or 2 minute promotional segments that’ve hastily stitched together. No overarching structure. >

Similar to top gun 1 and 2 then. xD >

I mean yeah pretty much, at least substantively, the difference being that both Top Guns have solid editing and scene transitions. >

Why are top comments on such posts always passive agreesive churlish jokes? Why is reddit so incapable of discussing something without infantalizing it. >

It’s a large subreddit. They all end up this way. You want to find smaller ones for any real conversation to happen. >

Even smaller ones become real circlejerks over time, the problem is the upvote/downvote system making it hard for balanced discussion to take place. >

The problem is reddit has become too mainstream, with too many dumb people and children upvoting/downvoting.  Reddit has always had the upvotes and downvotes, but only in the last 5 years or so has the lack of genuinely insightful comment discussions become so apparent. >

Chinese were just getting a closer look if they got a good copy >

Cold war 3.0  ok I'm cool because I lived 1.0 and 2.0
Sorry previous generations, sincerely genxer >

Is 2.0 Syria or Ukraine? >

Texas >

Did we give them the inverted bird? >

I remember about 20 years ago or so when a Chinese military plan hit one of our military planes and they had to make an emergency landing in China. Bout ripped the nose off if I remember correctly. >

I have to imagine 20 years of military development, training, expansion, and improvement, has completely transformed the PLAAF into something remarkably more serious than china in the early 2000’s/late 90’s >

Yup. Their J-20 is the only other truly operational 5th gen fighter besides the F-35 and F-22. Not like those Russian Su57s that they repaint different tail numbers on to make it look like they have more then they do lmao >


Australia's defence department said in June that a Chinese fighter aircraft dangerously intercepted an Australian military surveillance plane in the South China Sea region in May.
Australia said the Chinese jet flew close in front of the RAAF aircraft and released a "bundle of chaff" containing small pieces of aluminum that were ingested into the Australian aircraft's engine.  

That's a pretty dumb way to start a war.  If that aircraft crashed because it was low-key shot down by a Chinese jet, things could have spiraled out of control.  Other nations are NOT ceding the airspace to the Chinese.  These continued provocations will absolutely end up in death and casus belli  if China doesn't figure that out. >

Australia is not going to declare war with a superpower over losing a spy plane or 20. 
That happened all the time in the OG cold war without it going hot. >

I'm sure this is playing differently in China media circles. 
"US spy aircraft thwarted by brave Chinese Pilot"
Edit: Bet a buck they violate the air space of Taiwan soon. >

Go on China, keep playing chicken til you fuck up.  
For those unaware, Chinese pilots routinely do things which bring them dangerously close to other aircraft of many nations. They are practically begging for an accident >

And that ended up being a huge win for China, they got a lot of tech out of that plane. >

Makes me wonder why the crew wasn't trained on deleting everything and why there is no big red button to delete everything. >

they are trained on that, it's just the big delete button is a series of tools that you use to smash the everloving shit out of everything. the crew was able to destroy most of the senstive stuff but not everything before they were detained >

Wikipedia says "The crew had not been formally trained on how to destroy sensitive documents and equipment, and so improvis" that's why I was wondering. Beating the shit out of it was a given, but I thought there was more to it lol >

I enjoyed reading the abandon ship procedure when I was on a submarine. We were never trained on it explicitly, but it existed.
Here's the gist. Take the list of valuable things, which was mostly circuit boards involved in weapons, sonar, radar, and reactor control. Fill a hatch with the important circuit boards, then fill the hatch with fuel oil, then light the pool of fuel and circuit boards on fire.
There were some paragraphs on smashing some things. There were some paragraphs on how the CO might choose to sink the ship and some big picture oversights for that process.
Overall though it was collect the exact stuff you would think would be valuable to a foreign country and smash it and set it on fire. >

U.S. jet came within 10 feet of Chinese military aircraft -Chinese military >

Filipino here. There was an incident where our navy were pulling debris within our territorial waters when the Chinese Navy intercepted them, cut the rope that was pulling the debris, and took it themselves.
Our foreign affairs attache raised an issue about it, but the Chinese said there wasn't any issue and in fact both navies had a "friendly consultation" about it in which they claim our navy turned it over. Our navy later released a video recording of the incident contradicting all of the Chinese claims. 
In short, the Chinese, specifically their armed forces and their government, are bullshit. >

2023 is gonna be a wild ride, more than the last few years I fear >

Zhang “You're everyone's problem. That's because every time you go up in the air, you're unsafe. I don't like you because you're dangerous Chen!!!” >

Good post except this is P.R. China, not Taiwan.  So while Chen works, Chang needs to got to pinyin form: Zhang. >

“This your idea of fun Mav?” >

Was he inverted? >

The more important question is was he keeping up relations >

That's really dumb. >

War games. Way closer than normal but this shit happens a bit. Show of force >

We were inverted. I gave them the international sign of diplomacy >

Flying upsidedown on top of the other jet? >

Jesus Christ it's 2 days until the end of 2022
Can we get a break >

Can you imagine the poor guy that had to go out of the plane to measure how far apart the were?