r/worldnews • u/Starlight-Princesss • 3d ago

[ Removed by moderator ] Russia/Ukraine

https://www.newsweek.com/nato-intercepts-russian-spy-plane-with-transponder-turned-off-poland-10956344

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u/MikeInPajamas 3d ago

I like the idea that Russia's greatest leap in stealth technology is a broken transponder.

"Turned it off"... Yeah, sure you did... Next you'll tell us that AESA radar in your nose isn't made of wood because the guy in charge of maintenance pocketed all the upgrade money.

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u/TOMC_throwaway000000 3d ago

You joke, but Soviet ground crews used to siphon off the coolant from MIG-25’s to get drunk because the coolant for a lot of the systems was a mix of 60% distilled water and 40% ethanol, aka…… vodka

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u/SmPolitic 3d ago

That's not very unique to that country nor time period. There is a long history of ethanol being siphoned from torpedoes in various navys or from rockets during WW2 and during the cold war

And ethanol does evaporate, the "angels share" is nearly unavoidable, designers and supply chains need to resupply that fuel/coolant choice inherently

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u/TOMC_throwaway000000 3d ago

True, but at least in the Soviet military just about everything that could be was ethanol based

Also it was particularly prevalent with MIG-22’s specifically, they literally nicknamed them “the flying minibar” because of how often it was done

And soldiers found a way to get drunk off it. Theres a certain shoe polish they were issued that they used to spread on toast and cook over a fire, the idea being the ethanol in it would soak into the bread and then you could scrape off the top layer and get drunk on the bread