A British RC-135 Rivet Joint aircraft has again deployed to monitor Russian forces around Crimea.
This isn’t the first deployment of course as many of you are aware, this has been ongoing almost daily.
The open source intelligence and aircraft monitoring account BlueSky is following the aircraft on Twitter, you can find them here.
RAF
RC-135 Rivet Joint
ZZ664Out of RAF Waddington, currently over Ukraine, heading towards Black Sea
Noted at 09:40z pic.twitter.com/5NGkIhhkIZ
— BlueSky (@AirSpecInt) May 25, 2021
Other aircraft, including an American RQ-4 Global Hawk surveillance drone are also present in the area.
What does the RC-135W do?
According to the Royal Air Force website, the RC-135W Rivet Joint is a dedicated electronic surveillance aircraft that can be employed in all theatres on strategic and tactical missions. Its sensors ‘soak up’ electronic emissions from communications, radar and other systems.
“RC-135W Rivet Joint employs multidiscipline Weapons System Officer (WSO) and Weapons System Operator (WSOp) specialists whose mission is to survey elements of the electromagnetic spectrum in order to derive intelligence for commanders.”
The Royal Air Force say that Rivet Joint has been deployed extensively for Operation Shader and on other operational taskings. It had been formally named Airseeker, but is almost universally known in service as the RC-135W Rivet Joint.
The UK operates three of these aircraft.
Sniff, sniff…………..Ah! There you are, fancy using your Iphone for that!
Surprised it hasn’t been grounded by winky-wanky authorities claiming a terrorist threat!
Was watching a RAF E3D Sentry yesterday (on Fligtradar24), travelling eastbound out of Waddington. Saw him as far as overhead Crete but then had to go out, so didn’t see his final destination but too far south for Crimea. Looked like he was heading for Akrotiri. Don’t often see a Sentry. I guess he would be taking up post for Shader ops out of Cyprus.