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An essay on this grim reaper thing

Because a 'Reaper' drone was lost over the Black Sea, senator Lindsey Graham called for escalating hostilities towards Russia. To which the Russian ambassador to the US responded that he is aiming for nuclear war. Now Graham and the late John McCain went to Ukraine in 2016 to prepare the Ukrainians for war with Russia, so no real surprises there. The two of them had already been instrumental in the coup of 2014 which ended democratic rule in Ukraine. But what happened?

 

This (Grim) 'Reaper' didn't take-off on a sightseeing tour. It is one of the instruments the US is using to help the Ukrainians in their war with Russia. The US is not a neutral power, or merely a war profeteer through selling weapons, but a party in this war. And in my reading they are directing it, using the Ukrainians as the 'Dumb Fucks' paying for it with their lives, and losing their country. The US, in other words, is engaged in a 'Proxy War'. Much to the dismay of Graham, who would *LOVE* to see war with Russia break out before he follows the example set by his friend McCain, when he passed on to the 'Netherworld'. 

 

We can't be sure of the exact mission, but according to the Russians this drone entered Russia's 'Air Defense Identification Zone', an arbitrary stretch of airspace over wide open waters along the coast of a country, with its transponder switched off. Not a friendly act, less so if you understand that these drones have the capability to 'illuminate' targets for precision strikes, and that the US is assisting Ukraine in this sense. We cannot be sure if this was what this drone was meant to do. The Americans use drones for all kinds of missions, including drone-killings of people the US president signs off on, and in 2019 they lost a 'Global Hawk' which was crossing Iranian airspace, according to the Iranians. 

 

In a video-clip released by the Americans, we see a Russian Sukhoi-27 fighter-jet approaching the drone from behind, in what must have been a 'glide-in', using no thrust, until the jet gets close behind the slow flying drone. The plumes emitted from the fighter is not 'fuel dumping', but opening up the throttle to pick up speed. The plumes are exhaust gasses, emerging from the fighter's twin jet engines. The fighter passes by real close, and with plenty of thrust on the engines I have no doubt that a stalling engine on the drone is the more likely cause of it's crash. And not some sort of collision. A pilotless drone suffering an engine failure is in serious trouble. The air intake of it's single Honeywell turbo-prop jet-engine is on top of the drone, between the V-shaped fins protecting the propellor, and it would have been hit by the wake of the passing jet, and the exhaust plumes of both of it's engines. 

 

To list it as a mere incident after a joyful 'dogfight' with this high-value spy-toy would be asking too much, but I do not see any clear attempt to destroy the drone, although I can imagine that this may have been a smart technique thought out by some Russian 'Maverick'-pilots to lay their hands on a drone, without blowing it to pieces. From what I understand, the Russians reached the spot where the drone went down first, and recovered it. If so, it may provide plenty of valuable information for the Russians about it's mission. I'm not saying the drone had some 'black boxes' installed, for the Russians to reconstruct what it did before it crashed. But a drone can be equipped with a specialised 'package' for certain missions. And laying your hands on such a state of the art piece of spying equipment is a serious reason for 'High-Fiving'. So many things you can learn from picking it apart. 

 

To accuse a military aviator of conducting an 'unsafe flight', is like telling the ice-cream parlour that their ice is cold. What do you expect? They won't do something like this to a passenger aircraft, although they may scare the bejesus out of a private pilot once in awhile, just for fun, if they think they can get away with it. But low, fast, and close is what they do. And a drone like this is begging for it. Anyway, if it was not by design, they now know how to 'manage' this problem with drones like the 'Reaper'. Do a 'fly-by' to say 'hello' to the operator in his 'office', and kill the engine. Much cheaper, and more rewarding, than what the US did with these balloons, which were innocent to boot. This 'Reaper' was most certainly not checking on the weather.

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