jonathan, very powerful system, gives you high altitude capability. it s a tool the ukrainians need to create their own no-fly zone. i think the next thing that nato could do would be to get tactical aircraft, jets into the hands of the ukrainian pilots. the mig-29, pretty good candidate. i think that has been examined very seriously. might come into the battle field. again, a major tool in allowing the ukrainians to enforce a no-fly zone. are those the planes that are sitting in poland right now? that s exactly right. these are polish jets. and the theory of the case is that the poles would give them to the ukrainians, much as the slovaks are giving the s-300 system. we, the united states, would backfill the poles, perhaps with our f-16s, pretty good fighter. and, by the way, in slovakia, we
that s what president zelenskyy asked for. he gets a lot more, too. the lethal drones, we need more of those in the country as well. he talks about a no-fly zone. they can create their own if we give them the military and wea military weapons. that raises the defense to a high altitude given the s-300 s capability. to your point, the combination of that, stingers which have a lower altitude capability, other systems we reported earlier this morning, they re medium altitude. can that add up to effectively closing the skies over ukraine as zelenskyy is asking for? i think you re right. the stinger is very effective with helicopters. we saw that done against the soviets in afghanistan. but the s-300s are high altitude, sort of like an anti-aircraft system. the fact they re in country and war coming is going to be very
better. also a lot of the surface to air missile systems from the u.k. that have higher altitude capability than the stingers that they ve been using. those would be crucial. jet fighters are going to have a tough time surviving particularly a mig 29 against russian fighters and against russia surface to air missile defenses. but things like the s 300 and other higher grade surface to air missiles can really you know, take down russian missiles and russian planes and help ukraine get a little bit more control of the skies overhead. you re absolutely right. the british ministry of defense said today that russia has been quote, surprised by the scale of the ukrainian forces, but how long do you think the ukrainians can actually hold out amid this relentless russian bombardment? i don t know. but i do know that the ukrainian people are incredibly courageous, will to fight and they re fighting for their country.
and can you get boxed in. so, if you reach a point where you are running out of options, you have to do the right thing because it s almost like this. if the controller tried to vector you into another airplane, he couldn t do it in a million years. so you forget about that aspect of it because if you you don t want to be in a situation where there is a thousand and one chance you might hit another airplane and trade that for a 50/50 chance you may get upset at very high altitude. the higher the airplane goes the less stable it is is as far as dealing with turbulence. your options are to not get in it it s not so bad down low making an approach to an airport. right. it s just a really rough ride. but when you are up near the airplane s altitude capability or to the edge of it, it can be very he dangerous. your safety factor is stay away from it. of course. you don t want to try to it avert one danger and create
enjoyed my time as the captain on the airplane. we flew it in all weather. it is a very maneuverable airplane. it has absolute state of the art electronics, both weather radar and systems on the airplane. so the pilots of an a-320 are prepared as anybody in the sky to be able to deal with inclement weather. and pilots professional pilots deal with thunderstorms and inclement weather regularly. it s part of the experience that you gain as a pilot. so the deviation requests are absolutely normal. the altitude the airplane service ceiling is 39,000 feet. then the computers onboard will tell you at a push of a button what altitude capability you have for the specific weight and temperature that you are. so if they requested 38,000 feet that they know that they can get there safely with the profit margins. so other than the fact that there was not a call to air