Photo: JFC_Naples/Twitter
For a while now, we’ve got you used to seeing military aircraft posing for the camera in the most extraordinary of circumstances and settings. As it happens, most of said aircraft, and the pilots flying them, are American, because the U.S. Air Force (USAF) understood there’s also a need to showcase its force in some other way than above the battlefields.
Most of the pics the USAF releases show aircraft during exercise routines, mostly because until recently there wasn’t any major war taking place around the world. That changed in February, when Russia spilled its tanks and planes into Ukraine.
The start of the war prompted America to bolster its presence in Eastern Europe, and take out the heavy guns, including the ones fielded by NATO allies. And this is why we’re now faced with a flood of images depicting non-American pilots flying in their American machines not for drills, but during actual missions.
That’s what we have in the main photo of this piece: two Romanian F-16 Fighting Falcons, flying a patrol mission over the country’s land as part of the increased NATO presence in response to the Russian aggression – some 130 Allied aircraft are routinely going out for such missions over the continent.
Seemingly pulling a maneuver for the camera on purpose, one of the F-16s is seen moving towards the photographer, while the other is breaking off away from him, resulting in an impressive show of force, and possibly even proof that pilots, no matter the flag under which they fly, are equally as talented.
The image, posted by Allied Joint Force Command Naples and the Romanian Ministry of National Defence in mid-April, is accompanied by a simple, yet very hard-to-answer question: “How many G's do you think these #Romanian pilots pulled during this air policing mission?“
We dare you try and answer that.
The start of the war prompted America to bolster its presence in Eastern Europe, and take out the heavy guns, including the ones fielded by NATO allies. And this is why we’re now faced with a flood of images depicting non-American pilots flying in their American machines not for drills, but during actual missions.
That’s what we have in the main photo of this piece: two Romanian F-16 Fighting Falcons, flying a patrol mission over the country’s land as part of the increased NATO presence in response to the Russian aggression – some 130 Allied aircraft are routinely going out for such missions over the continent.
Seemingly pulling a maneuver for the camera on purpose, one of the F-16s is seen moving towards the photographer, while the other is breaking off away from him, resulting in an impressive show of force, and possibly even proof that pilots, no matter the flag under which they fly, are equally as talented.
The image, posted by Allied Joint Force Command Naples and the Romanian Ministry of National Defence in mid-April, is accompanied by a simple, yet very hard-to-answer question: “How many G's do you think these #Romanian pilots pulled during this air policing mission?“
We dare you try and answer that.
How many G's do you think these #Romanian pilots pulled during this air policing mission?#NATO is protecting the skies across the Alliance. Allies maintain around 130 combat aircraft on alert. @MApNRomania pic.twitter.com/dhoFy8ASt2
— NATO JFC Naples (@JFC_Naples) April 15, 2022
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