Footage has emerged taken from the cockpit of a Russian fighter jet, showing a U.S. Navy P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol plane fitted with a secretive radar pod during a mission over the Black Sea. The video underscores the growing importance of the P-8 for intelligence gathering in critical theaters such as the Black Sea, an active war zone, where a tense standoff continues between NATO and Russian assets, on the margins of the conflict in Ukraine.
The video in question was published on the Russian aviation-connected Fighterbomber channel on Telegram and shows a mission that reportedly took place today, August 27. Publicly available flight tracking data does show a Navy P-8 mission over the Black Sea today, although we can’t be sure it was the same aircraft involved.
A tweet with embedded flight tracking data shows a P-8 flight from today, out of Naval Air Station Sigonella, Italy, and flying for four hours over the Black Sea, including at a distance of around 50 nautical miles from Russian airspace, off the Black Sea city of Sochi:
It’s also unclear what Russian aircraft was involved, although it is certainly a fighter from the Flanker series, perhaps a Su-35S, a type that has been noted flying such interception missions in the past.
What’s most notable about the video, however, is the extended antenna for the AN/APS-154 Advanced Airborne Sensor, or AAS, the elongated pod that is sometimes seen fitted under the P-8’s fuselage. As we have discussed in depth in the past, this is a powerful radar system that entered development in 2009 and began testing in 2014. This may even be the first time that the pod has been observed in the Black Sea. It’s also very rare to see the antenna extended, usually it is tucked tightly below the aircraft’s fuselage in its stowed position.
The footage provides an especially good and very rare view of how the pod is deployed in flight, using the Special Mission Pod Deployment Mechanism (SMPDM). By extending the pod well below the fuselage while in flight, the radar’s fields of view are no longer obstructed by the P-8’s two engines.
Details about the AAS pod and its capabilities remain strictly limited. We know that it was developed by Raytheon and that it is based around an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar. This has a moving target indicator (MTI) and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) functionality, making it suitable for tracking moving targets below at sea and on land. It is able to detect and make SAR imagery of ships at considerable distances and can also collect very high-quality radar imagery of objects of interest for further analysis, even at night and in poor weather.
In addition, the pod may well have secondary electronic warfare capabilities. You can read much more about this sensor and what it offers to the Navy’s Poseidon fleet here.
The Black Sea, with its combination of maritime activity and proximity to an intense ground war in Ukraine, is an ideal theater of operations for the AAS-equipped P-8.
As TWZ has observed in the past:
“The AAS is also specifically designed to work in littoral regions where it might have to scan both water and land areas simultaneously. Traditional surface search radars are typically optimized for one environment or the other, or have dedicated modes for each, and generally have difficulty covering both at the same time.”
Since before the full-scale Russian invasion, an armada of NATO intelligence-gathering aircraft has been patrolling over the Black Sea, as well as elsewhere in proximity to Russian and Ukrainian borders. RC-135 Rivet Joints and RQ-4 drones, to name just two, have long been staples in the airspace over the Black Sea.
As for the P-8, its value in the region, especially when equipped with the AAS pod, is obvious, providing the ability to monitor, with great acuity, various objects of interest, including moving ones, both in the water and on land.
Having the AAS-equipped P-8 in this area, combined with the aircraft’s existing electronic intelligence, networking and data-sharing capabilities, makes for a very powerful standoff targeting platform. Data can be fed to other assets in the air, at sea, or on land. It can detect ships moving from great distances, even small ones, and than ‘image’ them using its powerful radar. Detecting and cataloging enemy air defense emissions and radar mapping shore and inland targets is all in a day’s work for this highly unique aircraft.
The aircraft, outfitted in this way, also provides a partial replacement for the EP-3E Aeries II, which has now departed U.S. Navy service. The AN/APS-154 is also a direct successor to the equally secretive AN/APS-149 Littoral Surveillance Radar System, another podded Raytheon AESA radar that was carried by some P-3C Orions.
The latest encounter between a P-8 and a Russian Flanker seems to have passed without incident, although there is certainly a precedent for some more tense intercepts over the same waters.
In September 2022, a Russian Su-27 Flanker fighter fired an air-to-air missile toward a U.K. Royal Air Force RC-135W Rivet Joint over the Black Sea, although the details of exactly why that happened remain somewhat unclear.
According to one account, a Su-27 pilot misinterpreted an instruction from a radar operator on the ground and thought he had permission to fire on the RC-135. The Russian pilot achieved a missile lock on the British aircraft, then fired a missile that “did not launch properly.”
In March 2023, an encounter between a U.S. Air Force MQ-9 Reaper surveillance drone and two Russian Su-27 fighters over the Black Sea resulted in the drone being lost. A video released by the Pentagon soon after seems to confirm that one of the Su-27s struck the drone’s propeller, although it remains unclear to what degree that action was deliberate or a misjudgment.
U.S. Department of Defense video showing part of the encounter between a U.S. Air Force MQ-9 and two Russian Su-27 fighter jets over the Black Sea on March 14, 2023, that resulted in the drone being lost:
The video of the P-8 being intercepted by a Russian fighter once again highlights the relatively intense activity by surveillance aircraft and the fighters that monitor them in some of the tensest skies in Europe.
Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com