US Warplanes in Scotland "ready for airstrike"

pravda | 05.11.2003 16:10 | Anti-militarism

Massive Movement of American Warplanes Takes Place in Scotland
11/05/2003 17:25
The US is probably preparing another victorious war

Several days ago, a Western website published a news message which said that the US could probably launch another short and victorious war. The message specified the place where the military operation would probably happen. Below is the text of the message:

"Since Saturday, people in the Highlands of Scotland have been witnessing large movements of US warplanes overhead. Experienced observers say the large numbers are reminiscent of those that preceded the bombing of Iraq in 1998 and military strikes on Libya in the1980's as well as the first Gulf War.

"At the weekend warplanes were flying over at a rate of roughly one every 15 minutes. As well as watching them from the ground the plane spotters have also been able to overhear pilots talking by listening to their radio frequencies.

"At this rate some 288 warplanes would have passed over Scotland in three days. It is thought that the planes have flown on a route from the US over the North Pole to bases in Europe and the Mediterranean. The size and scale of the movement suggests that the US may be preparing to strike at a country in the Middle East in the next week to ten days."

At the end of the message the author presumes that it might be either Syria or Iran. The author asks readers to "pass the information on as widely as possible," because it may prevent air strikes.

The author of the message does not have a special piety to the US: he calls the USA the "empire," for example. Taking into consideration the emotional side of the message, one may treat it skeptically. Furthermore, the term "warplanes" is rather broad. It is not clear from the text, whether it goes about fighter planes, bombers, troop-carriers or all of them altogether.

On the other hand, one should keep such messages in mind especially against the background of events that have been happening for several decades. Everything is possible at any moment - people have become accustomed to it. Finally, it would be stupid to expect a message about a massive movement of warplanes on the official website of the Pentagon.

Vasily Bubnov

Read the original in Russian:

http://world.pravda.ru/world/2003/5/16/43/14619_Scotland.html (Translated by: Dmitry Sudakov)

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Comments

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circuits and bumps

05.11.2003 23:53

circuits and bumps is probably not a phrase which is familiar to most members of this forum.

however, a pilot has to do a certain number of take offs/landings per month in order to remain qualified. This usually involves taking off, flying round in a ten to twenty mile circuit, before landing. Actually, the aircraft rarely lands in the conventional sense: once the wheels are on the ground and the aircraft down, the pilot opens the throttles again to go round once more. hence the phrase 'circuits and bumps'

these circuits are obviously carried out at relatively slow speed, since they involve take offs/landings, and a circuit typically takes 15-20 minutes. I would suspect this is what our scottish friends were seeing.

and it tells us a great deal about pravda that would run a story like this wihtout any other verification.

sceptic

to skeptic

06.11.2003 08:24

You give a good description of circuits and bumps.

The original article stated:
Experienced observers say the large numbers are reminiscent of those that preceded the bombing of Iraq in 1998 and military strikes on Libya in the1980's as well as the first Gulf War.

Do you think the bombing of Iraq in 1998 and 80's era Libya attacks as well as Desert Storm was the only other times pilots performed circuits and bumps?

If not, these circuits would be easily seen on a more regular basis so your "suggestion" has a few holes in it along with some hot air...whooooosh

dig deeper

Look out for...

06.11.2003 08:43

In the run up to Gulf War I is was working in Bedfordshire, the US A10's started practicing low level flying much more regularly than usual. After a few weeks of this we started noticing the appearance of desert camo colours and 2 weeks later guess where that lot were operating!
This could be a very ominous sign! Watch out for some "Syria, being the hotbed of fanaticism and responsible for allowing foreign terrorists into Iraq" speech from Bushbaby closely followed by air strikes against "Syrian terrorist camps"......

...........Bush has got to go before he kills us all!

DEMONSTRATE 19th - 21st Nov

Phill

Any original info from the Highlands?

07.11.2003 12:54

Does anyone know if there are actually any original reports by witnesses from the Highlands. It´s a bit unusual we get the information via a russian website - but have no original reports from Scotland.

Pete