[Tee tiong huat]

NATO’s news: New US Spy Plane, A Rare Ukrainian Flight Into Euro, British Fighters. An Iranian airliner flew right through middle of it. Followed by two Royal Air  Typhoon. Americans flew their very best spy drone for the first time. A updated version of powerful most world’s-best, long-range robot spy plane, Northrop Grumman’s Global Hawk, Triton is specially designed over-water operations. Until Monday, Pentagon had never openly used a Triton over Black Sea. MC-4Q Triton modernized version of Global Hawk, designed specifically for over-water ops with high-tech robot plane on Mon flew a range of some 200 k/m (124 miles) of the Russia-occupied Crimea peninsula b4 turn & head back to its Sicilian air base.

Manufacturer Northrop Grumman advanced reconnaissance equipment aboard Triton “a most advanced maritime ISR capability deployed today.” Unique & at times peculiar NATO aircraft activity spiked around on Monday, April 29 at least 3 British Typhoon fighters sharing airspace appearing close escort an Iranian airliner, a first-ever sortie in theater by Pentagon’s best-equipped maritime spy drone, & a Ukraine govt plane defying the Russian AirForce flying safely in Balkans.

Kyiv-operated plane, from Emergency Situations, a An-32 firefighting twin-engine, made almost-unprecedented flight out of Ukrainian wartime airspace to fly length of Hungary & land at Zagreb airfield, Croatia.
flight tracking data show, Flight show air space & govt aircraft traffic in eastern Hungary & Slovakia about 12:15 local time.

A Ukraine Emergency Situations firefighting An-32B transits Lviv  Zagreb, a rare wartime crossing of Ukraine’s international border. 2 Royal Typhoon jet head north, preceding a civilian Iran Air Airbus flying at half normal operating speeds to Hamburg from Tehran shows aircraft with their transponders on.

By 5:00pm local time, US Navy Poseidon had made its typical to over Danube river delta. A RAF Boeing RC-135W join in, a 4-engine reconnaissance jet loaded with electronics intercept gear & technicians run & arrived in the airspace same time took up a north-south track pattern about 290 kilometers (180 miles) due east of Crimea & Sevastopol, HQ of Russia's Black Sea Fleet.

Kremlin:: Feb 2022 full-scale invasion. All  
Ukrainian & third-party aircraft operating in Ukrainian airspace is subject to intercept and shoot-down. A Ukrainian plane potentially subject to Russian attack for about a half hour, Ukraine plane was in the air near Ukraine-Hungary border, NATO air ops ctr, with 3 Royal Air Force (RAF) Typhoon fighter aircraft. There no direct evidence on possibly coincidental presence of Ukrainian An-32B in airspace over west Ukraine, & threat of Russian attack, well within detection & potential escort range of RAF Typhoons over east Hungary. At their closest, British & Ukrainian aircraft appeared to be about 50 kilometers (31 miles) apart.

Two British Typhoons launched from NATO’s main airbase southeast, Mihail Kogălniceanu Airport, some 20 k/m (12 miles) northwest of Romanian Black Sea port city of Constanta at 10:00 a.m. local time, accelerated to 500+ knots (925+ kph)& reached airspac eastern Hungary less than hr later. Flight paths annotated with per open-source data, transponder code display of RRR96661 and a call sign of Ascot 963.

British combat jets closely followed path, trailing or preceding by 10 k/m (6 miles) [escorting Iran Airways civilian airliner,) an Airbus A330-243 aircraft, with call sign Iranian Airbus Flight 772, flies a regular route Tehran - Hamburg as traffic above southeast Poland on Monday at about 12:00 local/08:00. Two Royal Air Force Typhoon jet head north tailing a Royal Air Force KC3 Airbus paralleling Ukraine’s and Belarus’ western borders. 

One Typhoon jet tails a IranAir Airbus flying at about half normal operating speeds to Hamburg from Tehran. Graphic shows aircraft with their transponders on. Other military aircraft maybe in the vicinity.

Its not clear why two Typhoons were escorting Iranian civilian airliner was scheduled to arrive 11 min early in Hamburg. Iranian Airbus, after reaching cruising altitude of 38,000 feet setting, about 11,500 meters) to flew from Iran to Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, far-eastern Hungary, eastern Slovakia, Poland and Germany without incident. 

Once over central reaching Romania airspace & southern Poland, Airbus dramatically cut its groundspeed [airspeed plus wind effects, which is all that can be seen by a ground tracking system] from a standard cruise speed of 520-540 mph down to an average of 280-290 mph, the flight tracker platform FlightAware showed. 

Why?. -- It not clear why civilian airliner reduced its speed, likely descending to lower altitude for approach vectors, airspeeds are limited by international flight rules. Open-source is uncommonly slow-down flight speed, Iran AirAirbus heading Tehran to Hamburg over eastern Hungary, Slovakia and Poland. During flight, so Royal AirForce jets appeared to escort Iran passenger jet.

An RAF Airbus Voyager KC.Mk3, transponder display on Monday, flew a typical south-to-north route along eastern edge of NATO air space, at passing within about 50 k/m (31 miles) of Belarus’ far-western border. Its aircraft performs air tanker and strategic missions, past mths, However, 1 of 3 RAF Typhoon w/transponder code appeared to peel off, followed Voyager north escorting British plane towards Lithuania, most air fighters in pairs, w/wingman aircraft usually turning its transponder to standby.

Kyiv Post open-source flight data, identified three British Typhoons in area, two following a Iranian airliner, 1 proximity to RAF Voyager.
Escort of Voyager marked a rare instance, NATO planners placed fighter w/transponder turned on, near reconnaissance jet flying near Belarusian airspace.

To the south, over Romania’s Danube delta, airspace which typically has seen one, and on infrequent occasions, two, US Navy Poseidon maritime reconnaissance jets fly search orbits for 8-12 hours daily, skies were empty of NATO search aircraft visible to civilian radars.

Monday: Triton reconnaissance drone fly over Black Sea. Previous flights Global Hawk drones traveled b4 eastward Black Sea. This US earlier model, land-configured version of drone, (Global Hawk), took to sky in 2022 over Black Sea, approaching as close as 150 k/m (93 miles) to the Russian mainland.

Kyiv Post graphic using FlightRadar show air space and govt aircraft is back