The downing of a US reconnaissance drone over the Black Sea by a pair of Russian fighter jets was no ‘Top Gun’ episode. As official accounts have it, the Russians first tried to drop fuel on the bird, a form of aerial pissing, presumably with a notion that this would interfere with its cameras or sensors, or weigh down the wings enough to force the Reaper to crash. Note to Russian Air Force-the Reaper has a very long and slim wing span—some 22 metres. The sensor packages are contained in protected pods. Pissing on it probably doesn’t work.
For the Pentagon press conference see:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?526711-1/pentagon-briefs-downing-us-drone-black-sea
In any case, the Russian fighter jocks next thought, if thought it was, involved some aerial manoeuvring around the slow moving Reaper to interfere with its flight path. Note to Russian air force—the Reaper is really slow, compared to you guys—max airspeed much slower than a World War Two fighter at about 275 mph. The planes the Russians were flying are old--the SU-27 is Soviet era, first deployed in 1985—but known to be highly manoeuvrable. Still, closing in on a drone when you are going 4X faster than it is tricky. Buzzing around it would take Tom Cruise level skill.
One of the Russian pilots miscalculated and knocked the large propeller off the back of the Reaper, causing it to crash into the Black Sea—fortunately without injury to anything that might have been on the surface of the Black Sea, say a fishing boat or a cruise ship. The Russian pilot of a SU-27 was probably lucky not to go down with the Reaper, that would have been grim.
But I am getting ahead of myself. What is a Reaper?
Well, you won’t see one in any Canadian skies soon. Why?— because the RCAF doesn't own any strategic drones despite long-standing procurement promises; and they fly pretty high—up to 50,000 feet (right where a Chinese spy balloon drifted across our skies). Note to RCAF—our NATO partners are a little ahead of us. The UK, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands have all purchased and operate Reapers.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/ottawa-launches-long-awaited-competition-for-armed-military-drones-1.5778192
The Reaper, or more properly MQ-9 Reaper, is the latest generation of US built UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles). They replaced the older Predator drones of Afghanistan and Iraq war fame, when the Predators were phased out in 2009. Each one costs about $32 million (all that cash equivalent swallowed up in the inky depths of the Black Sea). They are long- range reconnaissance aircraft, remotely piloted by a “crew” of two. But we should probably drop the quotation marks because the US air force now has more drone pilots than pilots of manned fighter jets. The Reaper can fly for long distances, loiter over targets for as long as 24 hours, and can carry both optical and electronic sensors and weapons (typically Hellfire missiles).
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/15/mq-9-reaper-what-is-the-us-drone-that-collided-with-a-russian-jet-and-how-is-it-used
Note to Russian air force—the Reapers that the US flies over the Black Sea don’t carry weapons. They are on spy missions.
What they are spying on are Russian naval forces in the Black Sea and on land in the Crimea and in southern Ukraine (their cameras can look slant-wise). My guess is that the Russians, who have no similar drone capacity (they have gone shopping in Tehran)—don’t like this. But intelligence gathering from international airspace is not illegal and is meant to be off-limits to armed interference. Note to Russian air force.
Incidentally, there was talk of the Ukrainians buying older model Reapers following the Russian invasion, but the US decided against allowing this for fear of the loss of sensitive technology.
The downing of one unmanned Reaper drone is bad business. It is unlikely to cause any serious escalation in the confrontation between Western powers and Russia over the Russian illegal war in Ukraine. Unlikely, unless it is repeated. Should the US decide to start to fly air combat patrols to protect the drones that would bring us all closer to danger. But odds are against this.
Assuming—note to Russian air force—that it has got the message—that unmanned drones in international airspace are not fair game— the incident should not be repeated. But that message has to get down through a convoluted Russian command system all the way to the kiddies flying the planes, who probably saw Top Gun Maverick at flight school. Or maybe Russian fighter pilots just prefer missions over the Black Sea pissing down on spy drones to combat missions over Ukraine, as Ukraine air defences are beefed up with modern day anti-aircraft missile systems. Or maybe they miss bombing civilian targets in Syria.
Note to Russian air force—I get it.