Hundreds of thousands watching spyplanes and tankers near Ukraine

12401
March 09, 2022
spy plane

Hundreds of thousands are watching spy planes and tankers near Ukraine.

The US and UK spy planes are taking off from bases in the UK and flying racetrack flight paths along the Ukraine and Moldovian borders monitoring Russian ground acitivity.

The US spy plane is an E-8C Joint STARS while the UK aircraft is an RC-135W Rivet Joint.

READ: Ocean Infinity commits to a new search for MH370 in 2023.

Modified by Northrop Grumman from a Boeing 707 the E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS) is ground surveillance, battle management, and command and control aircarft.

Here is its flight details.

An RC-135W Rivet Joint is an airborne SIGNIT (signals) platform and its sensor suite allows the mission crew to detect, identify and geolocate signals throughout the electromagnetic spectrum. It has been flying along the Ukraine and Moldovian borders. Here is its flight detail.

More than 18,000 people are watching a US KC-135 tanker on Flightradar24, while another 12,000 are monitoring a KC-10 tanker, while @CivMilAir on Twitter has 125K followers.

Here are the flight paths for both.

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