Firefighting aircraft

[Alexandre Bougakov]

Hello Rodney,

Friday, August 11, 2000, 8:15:01 PM, you wrote:

RP> Thanks  for  your  note.  What  you  say  is  quite  true, but the
RP> satellite    material    cannot    provide    the    signal-   and
RP> voice-intelligence  that  an  airplane  can,  nor  can  it provide
RP> zero-wait   intelligence  about  real-time  activity  at  military
RP> installations  and proving grounds. For that reason I suppose that
RP> American  aircraft  are  not  permitted  anywhere  near  sensitive
RP> Russian sites.

As  far as I remember, our governments have signed an agreement, which
allows  both  countries  to  make  control  flights over the partner's
territory  -  it is the measure, that allows both sides to control the
fullfilling  of  the Nuclear non-proliferation treaty. (Maybe, it is a
part  of  START-1 or 2, I don't know it exactly). Anywhere and anytime
(but only several times a year) - without the fear to get a rocket, as
Powers in 60-s on his U2 spy aircraft did. The opposite side warns its
partner  about  the  next  flight' time and route only couple of hours
before it begins.

American  and  Russian planes perform such flights several last years,
they  make  any  photos  and  recordings  above  any  object  they are
interested  in  -  it  is  a  matter of trust, which allows to perform
nuclear  arms  cut  -  without a fear that the opposite side will hide
couple of odd rockets somewhere. Palnes already fly and do it legally.

So,  I  suppose, that MSNBC.com is right - there are political reasons
to do so. It is not very original - I can give you lots of examples of
trade  protectionism  and  other such things in Russia - "support only
national  industry!",  "Buy  Russian!"  etc.  It  is very sad, that it
happens so anywhere in this planet and US is not an exclusion.



Good weekend to you, Rodney, and your family.

Cordially,

Alexandre Bougakov <mailto:bougakov at mail.ru>

Sociological faculty of the Higher School of Economics
(http://www.hse.ru/fakultet/sociology/default.html),
Moscow, Russian Federation

My PGP key ID is 0x97F20C99, Key Fingerprint is C83C 5998 F43A BEB7
70DF B8FC CC5E 960E 97F2 0C99 (PGP version is 6.0.2i)

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