Two Hungarian Gripen fighter jets were scrambled on September 25 from Šiauliai Air Base in Lithuania as part of NATO’s Baltic Air Policing mission, NATO Air Command reported on September 25.
The jets intercepted a formation of Russian aircraft—including a Su-30, a Su-35, and three MiG-31s—flying near Latvian airspace.
The word “scrambled” really irritates me in the context of dispatching jets to intercept something. Always makes it seem like the jets were “scrambled” in an unorganised way or something.
I thought it was some sort of electronic hacking at first. Where the jets electronic systems are being attacked.
I only have experience of eggs getting scrambled. The verb seems weird when applied to planes.
It’s a military term from long before you were born, I think you might just need to get used to it 😁
That’s exactly what it means but in reference to the crew not the planes.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/scramble
https://youtu.be/KoWc_kjblVI
I think it works something like this:
Calm down now, no need for control, everything is under panic.
But anyways, AFAIK the term describes an unplanned very quick deployment.
Well relative to how organized militaries typically are, just the sheer beaucracy of it all, it is somewhat unorganized.