Open Skies Treaty overflight OS-12-018; Russia over Canada in 2012

Russian Open Skies Tu-154M-Lk-1
Ottawa International Airport on 2013-10-27
Photo Credit: Colin Elliott

I'm working backwards through the flight plans and mission reports of Russian overflights of Canada under the Open Skies Treaty, and I am noticing some similarities and trends.  Since they only have ~5000-6000km according to the treaty to use in one mission, they can't visit every since military facility; but they make a really good effort.  The Russians have a few favourite locations they like to visit as often as possible; CFAD Dundurn and CFB Suffield are two of those locations.  Former Pinetree Line Long Range Radar Stations are favourites; after all, why would we decommission them and not build something in the same spot?  Any and all military bases are obvious targets of areal photography as well; Cold Lake, Kingston, Borden (w/ CFAD Angus), etc...

Open Skies Treaty overflight OS-13-020; Russia over Canada in 2013

Russian Open Skies Tu-154M-Lk-1
Ottawa International Airport on 2013-10-27
Photo Credit: Colin Elliott

As a follow-on to my previous post and the one before that on Open Skies Treaty overflights of Canada, here are the 2013 coordinates where cameras were engaged and disengaged, and flight paths.  This mission was performed between 2013-06-15 and 2013-06-20.

Click the square bracketed icon at the top right of the map to blow it up full-screen so you can read it better.

Open Skies Treaty overflight OS-14-032; Russia over Canada in 2014

Russian Open Skies Tu-154M-Lk-1
Ottawa International Airport on 2013-10-27
Photo Credit: Colin Elliott

As I mentioned previously, I requested, via Access to Information, from DND, all the flight plans performed under the Open Skies Treaty which were flown over Canada by the Russians until 2014 - and somehow got them!  So now I'm looking to find out what the Russians thought would be so important hat they would spend ~$150,000 to fly over here, shack up in some of our finest rural hotels, and buzz around Canada taking pictures of our great country.  Of course everyone would love to spend a week flying over Canada and getting away from it all, but their choice of things to photograph is sometimes a little odd.  The Diefenbunker?  Really?

I'm looking for you to identify some of the less obvious legs of the trip.  along the flight plan you'll see "START" and "STOP"; this is where the photos started to be taken, and stopped being taken.  If they weren't shooting photos at the time, they were travelling to the next leg where more photos would be taken; pretty simple.  It is plain to see they took photos of former Pinetree Line Radar sites (such as Alsask) and the former CFB Carp; but some of the other areas are a mystery to me.

Do you see anything interesting?

(Click the Maximize square at the top right corner of the map to go full screen)