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COBRA5:5 USAF RC-135 Combat Sent departing Bangor, ME after arriving from Lincoln Muni, NE yesterday.
Heading across the pond and rare...only two of these.
Prolly see dis off Crimea or over eastern Latvia and Lithuania at some point
45th Reconnaissance Squadron 97th Intelligence Squadron.
The RC-135U Combat Sent provides strategic electronic reconnaissance information to the president, secretary of defense, Department of Defense leaders, and theater commanders. Locating and identifying foreign military land, naval and airborne radar signals, the Combat Sent collects and minutely examines each system, providing strategic analysis for warfighters. Collected data is also stored for further analysis by the joint warfighting and intelligence communities. The Combat Sent deploys worldwide and is employed in peacetime and contingency operations.
Communication equipment includes high frequency, very high frequency, and ultra high frequency radios. The navigation equipment incorporates ground navigation radar, a solid state Doppler system, and an inertial navigation system that merges celestial observations and Global Positioning System data. Although the flight crew stations are similarly configured, the reconnaissance equipment is slightly unique within each airframe.
The aircraft are identified by their distinctive antennae arrays on the "chin" and wing tips, large cheek fairings, and extended tail.
Crew composition includes two pilots, one navigator, two airborne systems engineers, and a minimum of 10 electronic warfare officers, or "Ravens," and six or more electronic, technical, and area specialists.
https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/Display/article/104495/rc-135u-combat-sent/
Belarus Regime to Get $1 Billion from IMF, Undermining U.S. Push
Belarus’s regime, weighed down by sanctions imposed by the U.S. and European Union, is set to get an almost $1 billion lifeline from the International Monetary Fund.
That’s happening despite calls for the IMF to cut off President Alexander Lukashenko’s government following Western accusations of fraud in last year’s election and his brutal repression of protests that followed. President Joe Biden also met at the White House last month with exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, and the U.S. the IMF’s largest shareholder expanded sanctions this week to mark the one-year anniversary of the vote.
Belarus highlights how some authoritarian regimes opposed by the U.S. are set to benefit from the creation of a record $650 billion in special drawing rights, or SDRs, which are divided among IMF members roughly proportionally to the size of their economies. “Getting IMF funds is like manna from heaven for Belarusian authorities,” said Dzmitry Kruk, a senior fellow at the Belarusian Economic Research and Outreach Center, a research group based in Minsk. Lukashenko’s claim to have won a sixth term with 80% of the vote a year ago spurred the EU and U.S. to step up sanctions. Yet his government continues to have consensus recognition from fund members. That’s effectively the only prerequisite for any of the IMF’s 190 nations to receive an injection of the IMF’s assets, approved earlier this month.
The U.S. supports the SDR issuance to help the world respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, and the nation will keep exploring options with allies to apply pressure on Lukashenko’s government, a State Department spokesperson said in an email.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-13/belarus-regime-to-get-1-billion-from-imf-undermining-u-s-push
Muh Chatlogs!
RCH813 USAF C-5 Galaxy departed NB Rota and RCH805 C-5 arriving at same
813 departed Seymour Johnson AFB earlier wif 805 departing Westover ARB just north of Springfield MASS and stopped at Dover AFB prior to heading to Rota.
Guessing this has to do with the troops sent to Kabul.
>>82050, >>82055, >>82140 pb US Deploys Troops To Afghanistan To Aid Embassy Evacuation>Professor Clements
nite