6 ms·

US Air Force MQ-9 camera footage: Russian Su-27 Black Sea intercept

69 points by mzs 4y ago

mint2 4y ago
In the prior threads some posters were speculating “how do we know the Russians hit it, couldn’t the fuel have done it…” I don’t know how one can watch the jet’s trajectory on both passes and doubt it hit on the second.
- AustinDev 4y ago
  Yeah, I've been in the room with Reaper operators many times and held my tongue hoping they'd release a video. Those things have so many cameras and sensors... I would not be surprised if they could tell you which pilot was flying the Su-27. The ISR capabilities of the Reaper platform are amazing.
- advisedwang 4y ago
  The video is 100% consistent with either the jet hitting it or the fuel hitting it. 1. We don't know the field of view of the camera, which makes it impossible to judge distances and positions correctly. 2. We don't know whether the camera cutting out is actually the point of impact or some time before it (perhaps there is a buffer that got lost, or the US cut it early to mislead).
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
    How does the propeller blade get bent?
    - advisedwang 4y ago
      I'm not an aviation expert, but it's not implausible to me that the propeller is fragile enough to get bent by a stream of jet fuel traveling at fighter-jet speeds. On the contrary, a mid-air collision that just bends a couple of propeller blades and not the rest of the drone seems like either incredible flying or incredible luck.
      - t0mas88 4y ago
        Propellers are quite fragile things. If you hit a traffic cone with one on a small trainer aircraft, it's unairworthy immediately and requires an inspection of the propeller and engine.
      - Symbiote 4y ago
        It's not a "fighter jet speed" collision, since the drone is travelling at drone speed. It's the difference, which seems fairly small. The US military said there was a collision, and with this video there seems no reason to doubt them. https://www.eucom.mil/pressrelease/42314/russian-aircraft-collides-into-us-unmanned-system-in-international-waters https://www.eucom.mil/pressrelease/42314/russian-aircraft-co...
      - guenthert 4y ago
        Well, to this non-aviator, the flying as shown is immensely impressive. I mean, a jet approaching a drone heads-on and turning a few yards away? Russian military might not be all that popular on the english speaking internet at this time, but credit were credit is due -- mad respect for that pilot's skill.
        mint2 4y ago
        It’s not head on, the jet is already turned to pull away but the pilot either misjudged distance a bit or intentionally did it. Because they’re pulling away the collision is at a low relative velocity
        chiph 4y ago
        It's not head-on. The MQ-9 is a pusher-prop design (the prop is in the rear), so both aircraft were flying in the same direction. If there had been a direct collision, the impact velocity would have been the difference between them, not addition.
        guenthert 4y ago
        Ah, right, thanks.
    - noitdont 4y ago
      It doesnt. Relative velocity of blade tip much faster than jet wing tip.. Wing tip cant traverse bladed plane within 1/4 revolution of prop. Impossible angle to clear elevators and engine cowling and catch a single blade tip. Video is fabricated.
    - LispSporks22 4y ago
      It’s an artifact of the camera https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/21446/what-happened-to-the-blades-in-this-picture https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/21446/what-happ...
      - dole 4y ago
        It’s not rolling shutter artifacts, you can see the one blade is bent in the same direction as it spins, unlike rolling shutter which makes most of the blades appears to bend towards the same direction regardless of which angle the propeller’s at. (Probably not the clearest explanation, but still doesn’t look like rolling shutter.)
  - noodlesUK 4y ago
    I think as regards point 2., we can definitely tell that the quality has been degraded. I don't believe for a moment that the best video feed to come off of a multimillion dollar surveillance drone is rivalled by an iPhone 3GS. I expect that this is a degraded or auxiliary video feed. The cutout seemed rather analog to me which is a bit interesting. I don't think it's public knowledge how reapers get their video to the ground station (It supports satellite uplink, but I don't know if that's the only mode of operation). I do generally agree that the video looks consistent with the idea that the drone was either damaged by the fuel or actually hit.
    - gpderetta 4y ago
      I thought that US military purposefully severely degrades videos before releasing them, probably to hide capabilities. This is in fact surprisingly high quality.
      - wil421 4y ago
        If you remember Trump tweeted a photo of Iran and twitter sleuths were all over it and calculated its capabilities. Navy pilots who witnessed the UFOs said they saw much better quality video at the time of the incident.
    - dogma1138 4y ago
      The feed likely wasn’t from the primary sensor, UAVs have engineering and TOAL cameras that are far lower quality than their primary sensor electro optic package. Also I believe the drone itself was configured for a SIGINT/SAR mission so it would have an SAR pod and a bunch of antennas instead of an electro optic sensor payload.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - mzs 4y ago
    This is a very good thread geolocating this video but the answer as to why it shows contact is here: https://twitter.com/GeoConfirmed/status/1636749222195101696 https://twitter.com/GeoConfirmed/status/1636749222195101696
  - dogma1138 4y ago
    These are engineering or TOAL cameras also sometimes called flight cameras. They are for visual inspection of key flight systems e.g. flight surfaces, rotors and landing gear. As well as for assisting in non visual range take off approach and landing operations. The primary sensors are which take the nice photos aren’t designed for that, their optics and sensors itself won’t be able to focus on objects so close and the gimbal and pod location aren’t suited for inspecting the aircraft. The cutout in the stream is simply because the drone streams via satellite which is extremely sensitive to sharp disruptions in its location in 3D space so a drop in altitude or a rapid attitude change will cut the link. (This is also why the SpaceX stream often cuts out or at least used too). These cameras have far lower quality than the massive electro optical sensors in the primary sensor package and they also are allocated far less bandwidth than the primary mission package whether it’s ElOp, SIGINT or SAR.
srean 4y ago
This presents itself as fighter aircrafts engaging in acts of trolling. Another that comes to my mind is https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/the-story-of-iaf-mig-25-over-islamabad.330422/ https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/the-story-of-iaf-mig-25-over-...
- addisonl 4y ago
  Trolling is a close flyby. Dumping fuel on another aircraft is an attack.
  - srean 4y ago
    Trolling too is an attack of some kind.
    - _kbh_ 4y ago
      > Trolling too is an attack of some kind. Would it still be trolling if an American drone clipped a Russian plane by accident causing it to crash?
      - srean 4y ago
        That's different. But yeah if an F35 is messing with a drone, dumping crap on it, That would be trolling in my books. I am not saying any of these acts are justified, but they happen to tickle my humors by their absurdity, the situation, the PR response, what these machines are capable of and what they did in comparison.
        addisonl 4y ago
        Try dumping liquids on another car on the highway then explain to the cops it was just “trolling” and see how that goes for you.
pwinnski 4y ago
I certainly did not have "The US military pulls a Musk, releasing footage to prove the other party is lying or mistaken" on my bingo card for 2023.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  The US has done that…a lot historically. Like, since before Musk was born. Not sure why you’d call it pulling a Musk.
- dragontamer 4y ago
  In my social circles, it is called "Getting Musked" when you say, imply that "coast to coast full self driving" is coming in 2017, and its the year 2023 and you're still claiming that full self driving is coming. IE: The Russians are pulling a Musk. They're trying to bend reality despite the fact that a spy drone would obviously have cameras on it that would give proof positive of reality. --------- Could you care to explain what you mean as "pulling a Musk" in your context? Its grossly different from the way my social uses the term.
  - pwinnski 4y ago
    I refer to Tesla's practice of releasing videos after Tesla crashes in an attempt to discredit the drivers involved, which came as quite a surprise to the drivers, who didn't realize that the cameras on the car they bought would rat them out.
- mempko 4y ago
  On thing the US military is betting on is that nobody can tell WHERE this video took place. But geocoders on the internet work miracles. I recommend searching to see where this took place. Both the Russians and US lied in different ways. Both are trying to save face right now because we don't need WWIII
  - dragontamer 4y ago
    The video makes it clear that they're over the sea, and the wreck is in international waters. And the closest "disputed territory" is internationally recognized Ukrainian borders. What exactly is controversial here? At best, Russia downed a US Aircraft when it was over Ukraine. If US story is to be believed, it was over international (and I find that more likely anyway).
robomartin 4y ago
Random thought: A good response might be to recover the cost of this aircraft and related losses from one or more of the bank accounts that have been frozen? Preferably those closely connected with Putin and his inner circle?
petre 4y ago
This was a very Russian and unprofessional move. I just wonder what can be done to take down the Russian jet along with the drone. US F15s took down a Mi-24 Hind that shot unarmed civilians in Iraq by flying close to it and blinding the crew with onboard lasers. They weren't allowed to engage. The USAF promptly reacted by banning any flights below 3000 m.
- mustacheemperor 4y ago
  Could you link a source on that second bit? Seems like an interesting story, but searching online just returns articles about the pilot that took out a hind by dropping a bomb on it.
  - petre 4y ago
    I read it in the F15 wikipedia entry under "Operations Southern Watch and Northern Watch". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-15E_Strike_Eagle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-15E_Stri...
- callmetom 4y ago
  [dead]
- srean 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655#Shootdown_of_Flight_655 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655#Shootdown_...
simonblack 4y ago
Such a small amount of footage. Not enough to get a true picture of what happened. If the the Russian pilots were so effective in such a short time, they are truly magnificent. (Speaking as an ex-pilot myself)
- lttlrck 4y ago
  Enough to see there was collision... the propellor was bent.
  - simonblack 4y ago
    If you can fly so finely that you can bend one propeller blade and not damage any tail fins in the process, you're a far better pilot than I could ever dream of being. Then again, we don't know what other damage there was, because nothing was shown. And why is the propeller blade bent the wrong way? It should be bent backwards, not forwards. (Propeller was shown as spinning anti-clockwise in first part of video, so it should be bent to the left instead of to the right in the second part)
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - _Wintermute 4y ago
      I can't imagine the plan was to actually collide. For the propeller reversing direction, that's a common optical illusion. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagon-wheel_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagon-wheel_effect
      - simonblack 4y ago
        It's a pusher-prop, You can see the way the blades are pitched (facing) for forward propulsion. Even the best planes don't fly backwards.
- _kbh_ 4y ago
  > If the the Russian pilots were so effective in such a short time, they are truly magnificent. (Speaking as an ex-pilot myself) Im not sure thats the right conclusion, I think it's far more likely the pilot was super lucky and accidentally hit the drone.

69 points by mzs 4y ago

In the prior threads some posters were speculating “how do we know the Russians hit it, couldn’t the fuel have done it…” I don’t know how one can watch the jet’s trajectory on both passes and doubt it hit on the second.

AustinDev 4y ago
Yeah, I've been in the room with Reaper operators many times and held my tongue hoping they'd release a video. Those things have so many cameras and sensors... I would not be surprised if they could tell you which pilot was flying the Su-27. The ISR capabilities of the Reaper platform are amazing.
advisedwang 4y ago
The video is 100% consistent with either the jet hitting it or the fuel hitting it. 1. We don't know the field of view of the camera, which makes it impossible to judge distances and positions correctly. 2. We don't know whether the camera cutting out is actually the point of impact or some time before it (perhaps there is a buffer that got lost, or the US cut it early to mislead).
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  How does the propeller blade get bent?
  - advisedwang 4y ago
    I'm not an aviation expert, but it's not implausible to me that the propeller is fragile enough to get bent by a stream of jet fuel traveling at fighter-jet speeds. On the contrary, a mid-air collision that just bends a couple of propeller blades and not the rest of the drone seems like either incredible flying or incredible luck.
    - t0mas88 4y ago
      Propellers are quite fragile things. If you hit a traffic cone with one on a small trainer aircraft, it's unairworthy immediately and requires an inspection of the propeller and engine.
    - Symbiote 4y ago
      It's not a "fighter jet speed" collision, since the drone is travelling at drone speed. It's the difference, which seems fairly small. The US military said there was a collision, and with this video there seems no reason to doubt them. https://www.eucom.mil/pressrelease/42314/russian-aircraft-collides-into-us-unmanned-system-in-international-waters https://www.eucom.mil/pressrelease/42314/russian-aircraft-co...
    - guenthert 4y ago
      Well, to this non-aviator, the flying as shown is immensely impressive. I mean, a jet approaching a drone heads-on and turning a few yards away? Russian military might not be all that popular on the english speaking internet at this time, but credit were credit is due -- mad respect for that pilot's skill.
      - mint2 4y ago
        It’s not head on, the jet is already turned to pull away but the pilot either misjudged distance a bit or intentionally did it. Because they’re pulling away the collision is at a low relative velocity
      - chiph 4y ago
        It's not head-on. The MQ-9 is a pusher-prop design (the prop is in the rear), so both aircraft were flying in the same direction. If there had been a direct collision, the impact velocity would have been the difference between them, not addition.
        guenthert 4y ago
        Ah, right, thanks.
  - noitdont 4y ago
    It doesnt. Relative velocity of blade tip much faster than jet wing tip.. Wing tip cant traverse bladed plane within 1/4 revolution of prop. Impossible angle to clear elevators and engine cowling and catch a single blade tip. Video is fabricated.
  - LispSporks22 4y ago
    It’s an artifact of the camera https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/21446/what-happened-to-the-blades-in-this-picture https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/21446/what-happ...
    - dole 4y ago
      It’s not rolling shutter artifacts, you can see the one blade is bent in the same direction as it spins, unlike rolling shutter which makes most of the blades appears to bend towards the same direction regardless of which angle the propeller’s at. (Probably not the clearest explanation, but still doesn’t look like rolling shutter.)
- noodlesUK 4y ago
  I think as regards point 2., we can definitely tell that the quality has been degraded. I don't believe for a moment that the best video feed to come off of a multimillion dollar surveillance drone is rivalled by an iPhone 3GS. I expect that this is a degraded or auxiliary video feed. The cutout seemed rather analog to me which is a bit interesting. I don't think it's public knowledge how reapers get their video to the ground station (It supports satellite uplink, but I don't know if that's the only mode of operation). I do generally agree that the video looks consistent with the idea that the drone was either damaged by the fuel or actually hit.
  - gpderetta 4y ago
    I thought that US military purposefully severely degrades videos before releasing them, probably to hide capabilities. This is in fact surprisingly high quality.
    - wil421 4y ago
      If you remember Trump tweeted a photo of Iran and twitter sleuths were all over it and calculated its capabilities. Navy pilots who witnessed the UFOs said they saw much better quality video at the time of the incident.
  - dogma1138 4y ago
    The feed likely wasn’t from the primary sensor, UAVs have engineering and TOAL cameras that are far lower quality than their primary sensor electro optic package. Also I believe the drone itself was configured for a SIGINT/SAR mission so it would have an SAR pod and a bunch of antennas instead of an electro optic sensor payload.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- mzs 4y ago
  This is a very good thread geolocating this video but the answer as to why it shows contact is here: https://twitter.com/GeoConfirmed/status/1636749222195101696 https://twitter.com/GeoConfirmed/status/1636749222195101696
- dogma1138 4y ago
  These are engineering or TOAL cameras also sometimes called flight cameras. They are for visual inspection of key flight systems e.g. flight surfaces, rotors and landing gear. As well as for assisting in non visual range take off approach and landing operations. The primary sensors are which take the nice photos aren’t designed for that, their optics and sensors itself won’t be able to focus on objects so close and the gimbal and pod location aren’t suited for inspecting the aircraft. The cutout in the stream is simply because the drone streams via satellite which is extremely sensitive to sharp disruptions in its location in 3D space so a drop in altitude or a rapid attitude change will cut the link. (This is also why the SpaceX stream often cuts out or at least used too). These cameras have far lower quality than the massive electro optical sensors in the primary sensor package and they also are allocated far less bandwidth than the primary mission package whether it’s ElOp, SIGINT or SAR.

srean 4y ago

This presents itself as fighter aircrafts engaging in acts of trolling. Another that comes to my mind is https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/the-story-of-iaf-mig-25-over-islamabad.330422/ https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/the-story-of-iaf-mig-25-over-...

addisonl 4y ago
Trolling is a close flyby. Dumping fuel on another aircraft is an attack.
- srean 4y ago
  Trolling too is an attack of some kind.
  - _kbh_ 4y ago
    > Trolling too is an attack of some kind. Would it still be trolling if an American drone clipped a Russian plane by accident causing it to crash?
    - srean 4y ago
      That's different. But yeah if an F35 is messing with a drone, dumping crap on it, That would be trolling in my books. I am not saying any of these acts are justified, but they happen to tickle my humors by their absurdity, the situation, the PR response, what these machines are capable of and what they did in comparison.
      - addisonl 4y ago
        Try dumping liquids on another car on the highway then explain to the cops it was just “trolling” and see how that goes for you.

pwinnski 4y ago

I certainly did not have "The US military pulls a Musk, releasing footage to prove the other party is lying or mistaken" on my bingo card for 2023.

dragonwriter 4y ago
The US has done that…a lot historically. Like, since before Musk was born. Not sure why you’d call it pulling a Musk.
dragontamer 4y ago
In my social circles, it is called "Getting Musked" when you say, imply that "coast to coast full self driving" is coming in 2017, and its the year 2023 and you're still claiming that full self driving is coming. IE: The Russians are pulling a Musk. They're trying to bend reality despite the fact that a spy drone would obviously have cameras on it that would give proof positive of reality. --------- Could you care to explain what you mean as "pulling a Musk" in your context? Its grossly different from the way my social uses the term.
- pwinnski 4y ago
  I refer to Tesla's practice of releasing videos after Tesla crashes in an attempt to discredit the drivers involved, which came as quite a surprise to the drivers, who didn't realize that the cameras on the car they bought would rat them out.
mempko 4y ago
On thing the US military is betting on is that nobody can tell WHERE this video took place. But geocoders on the internet work miracles. I recommend searching to see where this took place. Both the Russians and US lied in different ways. Both are trying to save face right now because we don't need WWIII
- dragontamer 4y ago
  The video makes it clear that they're over the sea, and the wreck is in international waters. And the closest "disputed territory" is internationally recognized Ukrainian borders. What exactly is controversial here? At best, Russia downed a US Aircraft when it was over Ukraine. If US story is to be believed, it was over international (and I find that more likely anyway).

robomartin 4y ago

Random thought: A good response might be to recover the cost of this aircraft and related losses from one or more of the bank accounts that have been frozen? Preferably those closely connected with Putin and his inner circle?

petre 4y ago

This was a very Russian and unprofessional move. I just wonder what can be done to take down the Russian jet along with the drone. US F15s took down a Mi-24 Hind that shot unarmed civilians in Iraq by flying close to it and blinding the crew with onboard lasers. They weren't allowed to engage. The USAF promptly reacted by banning any flights below 3000 m.

mustacheemperor 4y ago
Could you link a source on that second bit? Seems like an interesting story, but searching online just returns articles about the pilot that took out a hind by dropping a bomb on it.
- petre 4y ago
  I read it in the F15 wikipedia entry under "Operations Southern Watch and Northern Watch". https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-15E_Strike_Eagle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_F-15E_Stri...
callmetom 4y ago
[dead]
srean 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655#Shootdown_of_Flight_655 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655#Shootdown_...

simonblack 4y ago

Such a small amount of footage. Not enough to get a true picture of what happened. If the the Russian pilots were so effective in such a short time, they are truly magnificent. (Speaking as an ex-pilot myself)

lttlrck 4y ago
Enough to see there was collision... the propellor was bent.
- simonblack 4y ago
  If you can fly so finely that you can bend one propeller blade and not damage any tail fins in the process, you're a far better pilot than I could ever dream of being. Then again, we don't know what other damage there was, because nothing was shown. And why is the propeller blade bent the wrong way? It should be bent backwards, not forwards. (Propeller was shown as spinning anti-clockwise in first part of video, so it should be bent to the left instead of to the right in the second part)
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - _Wintermute 4y ago
    I can't imagine the plan was to actually collide. For the propeller reversing direction, that's a common optical illusion. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagon-wheel_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagon-wheel_effect
    - simonblack 4y ago
      It's a pusher-prop, You can see the way the blades are pitched (facing) for forward propulsion. Even the best planes don't fly backwards.
_kbh_ 4y ago
> If the the Russian pilots were so effective in such a short time, they are truly magnificent. (Speaking as an ex-pilot myself) Im not sure thats the right conclusion, I think it's far more likely the pilot was super lucky and accidentally hit the drone.