Flying A Very Unusual Course

Reviving another tradition, perhaps? The Scotsman (10.26.07), via DangerRoom:

"Two Russian strategic bombers flew close to a NATO summit on an 'unusual' practice run yesterday, according to Norwegian military sources.

Lt-Col John Espen Lien said the flight - by two Tupolev 160 strategic bombers - followed a course near the Norwegian coast and between Britain and Denmark, before turning back some 120 miles north-west of the Netherlands, where NATO defence ministers were meeting in the city of Noordwijk."

Russian bombers 'send signal' to NATO

"'They were flying a very unusual course, compared to what we are used to,' Lien said. 'It could have been a coincidence, but there is also a chance that it was a signal.'"