Hartcourt Companies (fka HRCT)

[Investorman]

(OT) hansro - This type of game has been going on for a long time between various countries. US fighters used to "shadow" soviet bombers on a regular basis as theirs did ours. The fighter pilots typically would fly very close to the target plane and harass them; actually close enough that they used to give each other the finger. The Chinese pilots statement that they were 400 meters away from the E-3 when it turned and collided with one of them is ludicrious. 400 meters is over 1200 feet and if they were that far away a collision would never have happened. I suspect that the F8 pilot was coming up from underneath and behind in a manuver designed to scare the E-3 pilot and cause the E-3 to fly through his backwash. The F8 isn't much as fighters go but is much faster and more manuverable than a propellor driven patrol aircraft. The E-3 pilot probably didn't realize that he was that close as the F8 would have been in a blind spot. These situations, if they don't escalate, have a habit of passing fairly quickly once resolved. China and the US have many reasons to work together and not let incidents like this have a lasting effect. This has more to do with the internal struggles within China than it does with the incident in question.