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British officials complained to U.S. diplomats about secret American spy flights using foreign U.K. airbases, fearing that the data collected during those missions could implicate their country in potential human rights violations, according to secret diplomatic memos released by WikiLeaks. The British officials demanded from American diplomats that all such flights in the future be cleared by London, according to the cables sent by U.S. Embassy in London in 2008, and which were released by WikiLeaks on Wednesday. American officials dismissed the British concerns and demands as burdensome and obstructive to counterterrorism efforts, the cables showed.

Britain's defence chiefs were said to have been deeply unamused when a Russian nuclear submarine slipped away from the gaze of our military spies. I wrote this morning about how the "layer cake" of surveillance lost the submarine last summer as it left the headquarters of the old Soviet northern fleet in Severomorsk near Murmansk. It was picked up three weeks later on patrol in the Atlantic. Does this matter? Rob Hewson, editor of Jane's Air-Launched Weapons, thinks not. This is what he told me: The fact that we cannot track a Russian missile submarine, of which there are very...

The Pentagon was on the verge of retiring the U-2 spy plane four years ago, but Congress blocked the mothballing, saying the plane still had plenty of life and utility. The plane, which was designed to detect nuclear missiles during the Cold War, is now playing a greater role in spotting roadside bombs in the war in Afghanistan, according to an article in The New York Times. The plane can fly at twice the height of commercial jets to evade anti-aircraft missiles, but its sensors can detect spots where dirt has been disturbed to plant roadside bombs. This capability, which...

..pretty cool clip

James May always wanted to be an astronaut. Now, 40 years after the first Apollo landings, he gets a chance to fly to the edge of space in a U2 spy plane. But first he has to undergo three gruelling days of training with the US Air Force and learn to use a space suit to stay alive in air so thin it can kill in an instant. He discovers that during the flight there are only two people higher than him, and they are both real astronauts on the International Space Station.

N. Korea says it will shoot down U.S. spy jets flying over rocket launch site SEOUL, April 1 (Yonhap) -- North Korea warned Wednesday it will shoot down any U.S. spy jets monitoring its imminent satellite launch, an unusually harsh threat against the routine aerial reconnaissance activity. The North regularly publishes its count of aerial spy flights by South Korea and the United States. The warning followed the North's own report on Tuesday saying the U.S. and South Korea conducted at least 190 aerial espionage missions over its territory, including flights over a northeastern region where the North is preparing...

raynews.net via translation - Security source : spy plane shot down by the Iranian air defense Bhoudrmot manufacture View News / special : View News correspondent in Hadramawt security sources as assurances that the spy plane that was shot down in Mivan Bhoudrmot dropped the air defense part of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The sources pointed out that the Iranian plane was manufactured in carrying out espionage on the coast of the Arabian Sea off the coast of Yemen and air defense managed to topple a week ago. She drew the Yemeni authorities recently implicit accusations to both Iran...

North Korea's air force on Friday accused a United States reconnaissance plane of intruding into its territorial waters to spy on strategic targets. Its Air Force Command said that a US RC-135 plane being refuelled in the air had spied on strategic targets for hours after flying over its waters off the north-east coast. "The ceaseless illegal intrusions of their strategic reconnaissance planes on spy missions have created an imminent danger of military clash in the sky above those waters," it warned in a statement published by the official Korean Central News Agency. It was North Korea's second warning in...

Poland, US Sign Deal For Pilotless Spy Planes 04-22-06 10:10 AM EST WARSAW (AP)--An agreement between the U.S. and Poland will provide the Eastern European country with its own fleet of unmanned spy planes, or drones, the Polish Defense Ministry said Saturday. "We signed an agreement for two packages of Shadow 200 planes," Defense Ministry spokesman Piotr Paszkowski said. Paszkowski declined to give further details, but the Polish daily Dziennik reported Saturday that the planes built by United Industrial Corp. (UIC) unit AAI Corp. are being paid for by the U.S. under the Foreign Military Finance program and will cost...

Japan: 107 Alerts on Chinese Spy Planes By HIROKO TABUCHI, Associated Press Writer Thu Apr 20, 3:14 PM ET Japan has scrambled fighter jets 107 times this year to intercept suspected Chinese spy planes, a top general said Thursday, amid growing concern in Tokyo over China's arms buildup. The 107 alerts in the first three months of 2006 — the most in at least a decade — were a dramatic increase from the previous year, when fighters scrambled only 13 times against Chinese planes, said Gen. Hajime Massaki. "Chinese activities in areas around Japanese territory have reached unprecedented levels," the...

New Delhi, April 7: Photographs of militant training camps across the Line of Control, images of Pakistani army and armoured corps movements, mapping of new roads built by adversaries in sensitive border regions — ever wondered how India gets hold of these pictures? The secret, so far, was in the Indian Air Force’s MiG 25 aircraft that are to be junked from service next month. The high-altitude surveillance aircraft capable of flying at 2.8 Mach will fly its last sortie for the IAF on May 1 from the base of the 102 Trisonic Squadron at Bareilly. IAF pilots recall some...

Bangalore, September 14: The US has offered to sell eight P-3C Orion naval reconnaissance aircraft to India and New Delhi is examining the proposal, Chief of the Naval Staff Admiral Arun Prakash said today. The US has offered to modernise eight old P-3C Orion planes and supply to India, he told reporters here. "We are examining that offer," the Naval Chief said. Admiral Prakash said India needs some maritime reconnaissance aircraft as "we lost a few and some have retired." "So, we are looking out for a replacement. This (the US offer) is one of the candidates." Russia has also...

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A U.S. Air Force U-2 spy plane has crashed in southwest Asia while returning to its base, killing the pilot, the military said Wednesday. The cause of Tuesday night's crash was under investigation, U.S. Central Command said in a statement. One official said the location of the crash was not released because "host nation sensitivities" were involved. The Central Command's statement used the term "southwest Asia," which can be used as a substitute for describing the Middle East. The pilot was returning to a base from a mission in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. One...

WASHINGTON, June 21 - A U-2 spy plane crashed Tuesday night in Southwest Asia, the Defense Department announced, specifying an area where American aircraft support missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The crash is the first of a U-2 in that region. Military officials who have been briefed on the crash said early indications were that the plane crashed on landing at Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates, its home base. The were no indications of hostile fire, they said. The cause of the crash and status of the pilot are not known, the Pentagon said.

EVERETT, Wash., Nov 10, 2001 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- A crew member on the spy plane that collided with a Chinese fighter jet and landed on Hainan island says no one on board was a hero. Instead, the heroism of those combing the rubble of the World Trade Center in New York was hailed by Lt. j.g. Richard Payne at a veterans appreciation dinner Thursday night. Payne was the tactical evaluator on the surveillance plane that made an emergency landing April 1 after the collision with the Chinese fighter. He and the other 23 crew members from the Whidbey ...

<p>The coolest spy plane ever built, SR-71. I was watching Modern Marvels on the History channel last night. This aircraft broke all kinds of international speed and alitude records which still have not been beaten today. It was nothing for them to fly at 80,000 feet and it was a piece of cake to fly at about mach 3, or about 2100 mph. For those of you old enough, remember the sonic boom days? About 750 miles would create a sonic boom, or a doppler effect.</p>

WASHINGTON, March 7 — The North Korean fighter jets that intercepted an unarmed American spy plane over the Sea of Japan last weekend were trying to force the aircraft to land in North Korea and take its crew hostage, a senior defense official said today. One of the four North Korean MIG's came within 50 feet of the American plane, an Air Force RC-135S Cobra Ball aircraft, and the pilot made internationally recognized hand signals to the American flight crew to follow him, presumably back to his home base, the official said. The American crew members ignored the gesture commands,...

Y. mini spy plane flying high By Leigh Dethman Deseret Morning News PROVO — No, it's not a paper airplane, though you can fold it up. BYU graduate student Walt Johnson launches one of the computer-guided mini planes. "This is exactly the kind of work that I'd like to do professionally," he says. Stuart Johnson, Deseret Morning News It's a child's — and apparently a general's — dream: an airplane you can pull out of your pocket, program it where to fly and throw it into the air. This isn't origami but the creation of a few ingenious Brigham Young...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) -- The crew of a Navy spy plane that landed on China's Hainan Island in April 2001 after colliding with a Chinese fighter jet did not destroy all classified materials aboard, and it is "highly probable" that some fell into Chinese hands, Navy investigators concluded.</p>

The crew of a Navy spy plane that landed on China's Hainan Island in April 2001 after colliding with a Chinese fighter jet did not destroy all classified materials aboard, and it is "highly probable" that some fell into Chinese hands, Navy investigators concluded. The report, which was released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by Jane's Defense Weekly, blamed the Chinese fighter pilot for the collision and did not fault the Navy crew for failing to complete the destruction of classified information aboard the EP-3. Specifics about the classified materials were deleted from the released version...