First I do not have a clue who the guy is. The name I offered up, Alexei Savich, is cited as an aviation expert by the AFP article you placed such stock in as a verification. I would like to know his bone fides as an aviation expert. Second, I would appreciate your being a little more explicit about which other site you would like me to come over to. The Internet is a pretty big place.
The article and video have confirmed nothing as far as I can tell. I've looked at open source satellite imagery of military airfields in Crimea dated 2014. Those airfields had significant numbers of Soviet-era combat fighter aircraft as well as larger aircraft. (I'll admit my "squint" skills have atrophied so I'm not sure what they all were, and I did not have a light table to look at them as closely as one might like.) For all I know the videos and reports you cite are just people seeing those aircraft flying around to get ready for some kind of flyby for Putin on Friday.
The following account, from page 43 of John Prados' [I]The Soviet Estimate[/I, details the source of the 1950's "bomber gap" and is rather instructive I think:
For confirmation, here from Wikipedia, is an alternative report, citing a completely different source,The Russians scheduled another flyover for their Air Force Day ceremonies . . . . [T]he US air attach to the Soviet Union , Colonel Charles E. Taylor, went out to Tushino to watch the air parade. It appears that the Soviets . . .execute a deceptive flyover. Taylor saw first ten then eighteen Bison jet bombers fly past the reviewing stand . . .. The flyover was deceptive because the Soviets evidently pressed into service every available Bison and then had the first serial of planes circle, out of sight of the reviewing stand, to make a second pass overhead.
A good analyst cares whose name is on a report because source evaluation is a significant part of analysis. An IIR was (and I presume still is) evaluated in terms of the source and the content. The need for both should be obvious: a good source can be deceived and thus report as true something that is false, as the story above makes poignantly clear about Col. Taylor.Adding to the concerns was an infamous event in July 1955. At the Soviet Aviation Day demonstrations at the Tushino Airfield, ten Bison bombers were flown past the reviewing stand, then flew out of sight, quickly turned around, and flew past the stands again with eight more, presenting the illusion that there were 28 aircraft in the flyby. Western analysts extrapolated from the illusionary 28 aircraft, judging that by 1960 the Soviets would have 800.[5]
[5] Heppenheimer, T. A. (1998). The Space Shuttle Decision. NASA. p. 193.
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