Jay Honeck wrote:

The recent obliteration of the Somali chapter of Al Queda by an AC-130
gunship (See http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/ac-130.htm if you
don't know what one looks like) got me wondering how, exactly, one
would pilot such a craft during an attack.

Think about it. You've got a 155,000 pound, 4-engine transport
aircraft, making a continual left turn in order to keep your weapons on
the mark. It's pitch dark (darkness is your only defense, other than
ECM), and you've got 105 mm cannons firing right behind your ear.

I've watched C-130s turn, and they need a LOT of territory to turn
around. In order to keep their weapons on the target, I would think
the AC-130 would need to bank a lot more steeply than I've seen them do
in cargo-plane training. And, don't forget, you've got 14 guys and
gals seated behind you, working radar and weapons systems, most with no
view outside, so you can't yank and crank TOO hard or you'll have
barf-covered equipment from stem to stern.

In order to keep the weapons on target, I would think that you'd have
to hold altitude accurately, too, and your "track" would need to be
smooth enough so that the computers could figure deflection accurately.


In short, the pilot must have his hand's full during an attack run!
Even though you don't think of the C-130 as being a high-performance
aircraft, it's got to be a real trick keeping that pig over a
(relatively) small target.

Any former AC-130 pilots here? How'd you do it? Is there an autopilot
that holds you in a constant turn during an attack run, or is it all
hand-flown?

Actually, Jay, when you start your commercial certificate training you
will learn how to do this. It is called a "turn on a pylon" or "eights
on pylons" and is one of the performance maneuvers you learn for the
commercial. The objective is to keep the wing pointed at a reference
point on the ground, not to maintain a constant radius from the
reference point as with the private pilot maneuvers. This is tricky as
there is only one altitude for each ground speed that will allow this to
occur, the so-called pivotal altitude. Thus, rather than varying bank
as with turns around a point, you must constantly vary altitude to
adjust for the varying groundspeed as you go around the pylon. If you
had zero wind, then the pivotal altitude would remain constant.

I'm getting better flying this maneuver, but I still could not keep a
gun on a target!

I assume that the C-130 pilots have a little help with this maneuver,
but I don't know for sure how they do this.


Matt