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Comment by strictnein | Hacker News Reader

A good one (although some may dislike it):

On the way back from a mission to the middle east, they ended up flying over France, even though France had refused them clearance. They were flying low and slow (relative terms obviously), and the pilot looked to his left and saw a French Mirage just off his left wing.

The Mirage pilot called over and requested their diplomatic clearance code. The SR-71 pilot told the Mirage to hold on. The reconnaissance systems officer (RCO, the other guy in the plane) then informed the pilot that the code had been transmitted and they went back up to full speed and left the Mirage quickly behind.

The code that the RCO transmitted? The middle finger.

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America, f\\k yeah!

...

Sarcasm aside, wouldn't this be a severe case of violation of sovereignity? I find it hard to believe such a stupid act could have been performed without making news or retaliations.

(By stupid act I mean entering unpermitted airspace, the pilot's actions are irrelevant)

I have never served in the military, but I like to believe I live in a world in which military commanders are often stuck in a position of having to manage a load of testosterone-fueled lads out doing crazy shit that has the potential to be a "diplomatic incident" and are thus, sympathetic to the commanders in other countries that are often stuck dealing with the same type of lads.

So when a French commander calls up an American commander about some crap their lads pulled flying by in an SR-71 the other day, they're able to sort it out like adults, maybe the American commander relays that he will give his lads whatever the military equivalent of a stern talking to is and they'll both have a laugh, maybe make arrangements for a beer and it doesn't escalate into anything for the masses to waste their limited attention bandwidth on.

Now it's entirely possible I don't live in such a world, but to believe otherwise would simply leave me scared shitless in a corner.

i heard a story were a group of rookies in a jeep lost their bearings in the fog, and plowed through a barb wire barricade and got their jeep stuck in some sort of ravine on the wrong side of Germany.

the other side, instead of shooting or arresting them, they helped them get the jeep out. they laughed at them and made fun of them, but they still helped

I'm pretty sure that "international incidents" tend to be the result of, rather than the cause of, international tensions. If one or the other countries wants there to be an international incident, then there will be one. Usually something ordinary-ish that can be expanded into one will be promoted into an incident. If they're lucky, something that needs no exaggeration will happen at a convenient time. In either case, the real cause of tension is something else.

On the other hand, if neither country wants there to be incidents, than any potential incidents will be ignored and hushed up. Nobody will make any noise or volunteer any information about it. If a reporter happens to get information about it independently, it will be minimized and dismissed. Maybe the American pilot gets a slap on the wrist, the French pilot curses Americans a few times in his local bar, and everyone forgets about it soon after.

> (By stupid act I mean entering unpermitted airspace, the pilot's actions are irrelevant)

> America, f\\k yeah!

(I'm European, not French, but was pro-US during the Cold War.)

Yeah, my response was the same, until I read the context which the original quote lacks [1]. These 2 quotes are to me the most relevant from the story for the context of the original quote. Feel free to read the story in its entirety.

"The French refused to allow us overfly, so our mission profile was to refuel off the south coast of England, a Mach 3 cruise leg down the coast of Portugal and Spain, left turn through the Straits of Gibraltar, refuel in the Western Mediterranean, right turn into Lebanon and fly right down main street Beirut, exit along the southern Mediterranean with another refueling over Malta, supersonic back out the straits, and return to England."

Furthermore,

"We completed our pass over Beirut and turned toward Malta, when I got a warning low-oil-pressure light on my right engine. Even though the engine was running fine I slowed down and lowered our altitude and made a direct line for England. We decided to cross France without clearance instead of going the roundabout way."

The earlier quoted story lacks these nuances. Sure, you might still find it rude but for me it made a big difference that they weren't just invading French aerospace for no valid reason.

Its just typical that they opted to increase speed during the encounter with the Mirage while previously they decided to lower speed due to low oil pressure on the right engine. Although at that point they were much closer to home which was at the south of England. At some point, I just gotta stop being skeptic and trust these guys know what they're doing with their super expensive toy^H^H^Haircraft. Its easy to judge on others, claiming you wouldn't resort to this behaviour. But would we? Really?

[1] https://hipandthigh.wordpress.com/2013/03/18/blackbird/

> The earlier quoted story lacks these nuances. Sure, you might still find it rude but for me it made a big difference that they weren't just invading French aerospace for no valid reason.

Makes a lot of sense, thanks for sharing!

Before intelligence needs could be solved by satellite imagery, violating airspace for military purposes wasn't exactly rare.

Everyone largely agreed it wasn't in anyone's best interest to talk about it publicly though.

I do think it's odd that the Soviet government knew we were sending planes through their airspace for surveillance purposes, and the US government knew that the Soviet government knew, but the US government decided that the US population shouldn't know.

When Powers was shot down, the US started with the cover story that it was a weather research aircraft. Then Khrushchev was able to embarrass the US by revealing that they had Powers, evidence that it was a surveillance plane, and demonstrate that the US had been lying to the public.

So, why did the US government lie to it's own people? Why wasn't in their best interest to talk about it publicly?

(I assume NATO knew about this.)

There's no such thing as telling your own people. Once you inform your own population about it, the enemy knows about it as well. The same as is true with regards secret service such as CIA and NSA. As you say, that doesn't fly here, since the Soviet government knew, and the US government knew the Soviet government knew.

Why you don't want to talk about that could be because its an elephant in a room which could cause escalation because of public discussion. That escalation could be internal as well as external.

Another reason could be that it shows that the US government knew a lot about the Soviets which due to this increased knowledge decreases fear for the Soviets. Which wasn't in the interest of the US government; it was in the interest of both the US and the Soviet government to see each other as the enemy.

A third reason could be, in addendum to #2, that the leadership saw no benefit to it, in terms of propaganda. It might seem the same as #2 but its less nefarious or ill intent.

We may never know the truth about this. Could FOIA requests shed some light?

> public discussion

That's the reason in my opinion.

(A) If the Soviets publicize US penetrations of their airspace, they look militarily weak.

(B) If the US publicizes their penetrations, then (A) as the Soviet public possibly finds out, any fatalities (and there were some) now become part of public debate, and additional parties in the US are now involved in the discussion as to whether or not these should happen.

(C) If either party publicizes their own or the other, then the opposing party is likely to publicize in retaliation. Given that both parties were conducting penetrations to assess air defense systems, this was the PR equivalent of MAD.

Barring a scenario where the president needed a clear "victory" to buttress public opinion, there was no win to be had in the public being informed.

Add in the fact that deep in the Cold War most of the media outlets were still self-censoring "for the country" and there was no one with incentive to disclose.

That sounds reasonable.

Though I don't think your (B)(A) regarding the Soviet public was that important. Rather, if the Soviet public were influential, would there have been the gulag system, which ended less than a decade before Powers was shot down?

But the US response to the Soviets shooting down Powers was to lie to the public. Surely the US could have remained silent or non-committal, rather than construct a cover-up, and walk into Khrushchev's publicity trap. According to Wikipedia, Eisenhower said to his secretary "I would like to resign."

That leads to the obvious question - how often does the US government lie to the public?

> That leads to the obvious question - how often does the US government lie to the public?

Lie I don't know, but omit/diverge all the time.

How does a middle finger get transmitted? Had ascii art handy?

That story is from Ben Rich's book "Skunk Works". https://hipandthigh.wordpress.com/2013/03/18/blackbird/ describes it as "Lt. Colonel William Burk Jr., who shares about a particular mission he flew over Lebanon back in 82." That link also has the full account, ending "What he had given him was “the bird” with his middle finger" - that is, it was not sent by radio signals but by visual light to the Mark I eyeball of the Mirage pilot.

digital signalling

Ahem - digit signalling.

They were within visible distance, so he just used his hand up against the window. The plane really was right off the wing. Think Top Gun, with less inversion.

If they were that close, out the window.

Morse code of ASCII art I think

has anyone been in the airforce in the late 70s? My dad died on active duty in the airforce, and I heard second hand stories and was wondering how common they were.

in particular, he said they kept notes on everyone and turned them in (not sure to whom), in order to prevent russian espianage. For example, if you saw someone order something from a vending machine, it was up to you to write down who, what item they selected, etc. presumably these were checked for patterns.

Nice one!! Did he transmit the middle finger in Morse code or what?

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