Russian Bombers Enter U.S. Airspace Undetected.

Source: En.Rian.Ru

This is beyond creepy, if you ask me.

With the billions spent every year on defense, and the military cannot pick up a Tu-160 Blackjack bomber in our sovereign airspace? This thing is the size of a Boeing 747, it was fully armed, and no one saw it coming?

This says a lot about the GOP, their inept ability to keep us safe, and the state of efficient military spending.

MOSCOW, April 22 (RIA Novosti) -- Russian military planes flew undetected through the U.S. zone of the Arctic Ocean to Canada during recent military exercises, a senior Air Force commander said Saturday.

The commander of the country's long-range strategic bombers, Lieutenant General Igor Khvorov, said the U.S. Air Force is now investigating why its military was unable to detect the Russian bombers.

"They were unable to detect the planes either with radars or visually," he said.

Khorov said that during the military exercises in April, Tu-160 Blackjack bombers and Tu-95 Bears had successfully carried out four missile launches. Bombing exercises were held using Tu-22 Blinders.

A little background about the Tu-160 Blackjack bomber and pics here.

Tu-160 Blackjack Specifications
Primary Function: long-range strategic penetration bomber and missile platform
Contractor: Tupolev
Crew: N/A
Unit Cost: N/A
Powerplant
four 25,000-kg (55,115 lb) afterburning thrust Kuznetsov NK-321 turbofans
Dimensions
Length: 177 ft 6 in (54.10 m)
Wingspan: 182 ft 9 in (55.70 m)
Height: 43 ft 0 in (13.10 m)

This pattern of dropping the ball by the guys responsible for keeping our nation safe is starting to scare me a bit. How many "9/11"s do we need before the people in charge start taking this country's safety and security seriously?

It's extremely obvious with this recent development that we aren't quite there yet.

Tags: [Tu-160 Blackjack bomber], [Russia], [Russian bomber goes over US airspace, and no one picks it up?], [where is all of that money that's supposed to be going into the defense budget?], [Bush], [incompetence strikes again]