Separating the men from the boys

On 11/2/03 10:16 PM, in article
, "Elmshoot"
wrote:

Mike/Woody,
In the 80's and early 90's
Day VFR 200' if the route allowed. Night TC we used 1000' I did go down to
500'
in certain approved areas. ie; Bordman.
For weapons delivery what ever was allowed in the tac manual.
I used 100' /300kias for a laydown on the nuke delivery at Fallon was it B-16?
Not very tactical but I always got a bull.
We were doing a night anti boghammer exercise in the IO and I ws using 100'
500kias for the profile. the plane would do 520
Sparky


Not sure, but I THINK that on the OB-16 route (Eastern Oregon canyons) A-6s
were authorized lower than 500 AGL at night if the system was tight and the
crew felt OK about things.

Owl sends.


Owl,

What I actually *did* as a young idiot and what was 3710/SOP are two
different stories, of course. I think Pechs' original question was a 3710
issue... But I like the digression!

For me (late '80's early '90's), we flew 1000' AGL (3rd range bin?) on our
first trips back into the night/IMC low level world to refresh our TC quals,
but SOP was 500 feet (2nd range bin was close enough), and usually (even on
the 342/344/346) we'd fly that (mostly on ridge crossings, of course). When
NVG's came along, we'd no-kidding fly 500' AGL... And back it up with the
system.

Personal records. 100'AGL over water at night at mil power--same as you.
(Why? Because I was dumb. It's not like anyone can see you or you get
extra points for going that low and fast.) 140' AGL, 534 knots (off the
freeze data) at Boardman on a night straight path delivery (60' hit). 500'
AGL up the John Day River Valley at night in the goo. B/N's radar was
practically a pin point. Both of us agreed not to do that any more. I
routinely saw straight and level 530 knots (or so) down low on the gauge.

OBTW... 1.15M on the meter coming back from an FCF A. I don't think we were
actually supersonic though.

As an aside, the VFA guys used to (don't know if they still do it) used to
keep low altitude NVG quals. The guy with the biggest cahones is the one
with the low altitude NVG-I. YIKES. You couldn't pay me to do that without
a TC system. The one in the Hornet doesn't count.

--Woody