What's going on in the air?

[HPsauce]

Talking of NATO, there's currently, as there often is, a Global Hawk cruising back and forth in the Black Sea south of Crimea.

Odd thing is the route commercial flights take in and out of Moscow from further South if they go the Eastern route, which most carriers have to as they're banned from much of European airspace.
They seem to cross Turkey and/or the Southern Black Sea and generally avoid Georgia but head due East into the Caspian Sea across the very Southern edge of Russia or Armenia/Azerbaijan. Then head north and finally turn NW along the Volga past Astrakhan and Volgograd.

A huge swathe of Russia is generally avoided, even by planes in/out of Sochi which do a big detour. Odd as it's not that close to Ukraine, unlike Volgograd.

[sarg]

Originally Posted by HPsauce

They seem to cross Turkey and/or the Southern Black Sea and generally avoid Georgia but head due East into the Caspian Sea across the very Southern edge of Russia or Armenia/Azerbaijan. Then head north and finally turn NW along the Volga past Astrakhan and Volgograd.

A huge swathe of Russia is generally avoided, even by planes in/out of Sochi which do a big detour. Odd as it's not that close to Ukraine, unlike Volgograd.

Avoiding Chechnya I imagine

[HPsauce]

Originally Posted by sarg

Avoiding Chechnya I imagine

Oddly, not, they seem to fly over Grozny, that's why it seems so strange.
Unless the area they're avoiding is Russian Air Force territory used for launching planes/missiles into Ukraine and closed to commercial traffic?

And as it happens there's a sequence of Tu-124s from "Rossiya - Special Flight Squadron" taking a shortcut across that empty area this morning. At least two of them are recorded as an "Airborne Command Post" and another as just "VIP" by planespotters.net!

[HPsauce]

Weird one this evening, a Tu214SR has been flying in circles just South of Moscow for over 6 hours now....

Tu-214SR was especially developed for use by the President of the Russian Federation as commanding airborne center.

[HPsauce]

Interesting collection over the Black Sea this afternoon.
The usual/common Global Hawk drone, plus TWO manned NATO planes!
1. And RAF Rivet Joint, which was being closely followed by:
2. An RAF Typhoon, which has just turned its transponders off.....

[MikkiJayne]

Anyone spotted Cosmic Girl taking off from Newquay with Virgin Orbit's 'Start Me Up' mission? No transponder code on the tracking data which is interesting.

The first space launch from Europe, which is surprising.

[HPsauce]

Yup following it on FR24. Separation isn't until around midnight I think. The Virgin live stream is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Co18HcyqHk
Know that area well, we've had lots of holidays at Mawgan Porth in particular and other places nearby.

[HPsauce]

Originally Posted by HPsauce

Separation isn't until around midnight I think.

Correction, fairly soon, a few minutes after 11pm.

[MikkiJayne]

with falling in the sea and losing nine satellites shortly afterwards

[HPsauce]

Lots of people tracking "something" on FR24 that's over Ukraine.
ID is FCKPTN2 Not seen FCKPTN1 yet though.....