Piloting an AC-130 Spectre

"Kev" wrote in message
ups.com...

Jay Honeck wrote:
[...] 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.

Heh, in my experience, military pilots aren't that concerned about us
people in back :-) If they need to yank and bank, that's what they'll
do.

The Spectres are scary to troops on the ground. I remember in the
desert one time, I could vaguely hear something above. No lights on
the plane, of course, and no moon that night either. We were hunkered
down, and I was on guard duty. Suddenly I saw a mesa nearby light up,
just like you see in Close Encounters, with a beam from nowhere. It
lasted maybe a second.

A minute or so later, our mesa got lit the same way. For one short
moment, you could read a newspaper. Your hair goes up on the back of
your neck, I can tell you.

Can't say if it's true or not, but the story goes that if they read
your name on your BDUs, then they call down and you get into trouble
for being too exposed :-)

Kev
(ex-SSGT,USASA)

Interesting that you mention this...

I recall attending an airshow somwhere several years ago and being told by
an AC-130 crewperson that the fire-control system not only knows where to
shoot but also knows where *not* to shoot.

Jay B

Jay Honeck wrote:
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?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay

If you can fly to commercial standards you should be able to perform
the maneuver in question: Pylon turns.

The rest is just relative: size of the craft, airspeed, etc. A pylon
turn is a pylon turn. Add to that the night vision equipment and a
"gunsight" mounted on the pilots left side for maintaining the ground
reference point.

Not saying its child play, but its certainly not superman stuff either.
However, keep in mind that the average person in civilian life doesn't
have to worry about ground fire being returned.

Dave

Well, it seems pretty well established that the whole thing is done with
smoke and computers today. The original Gooney Bird setup sounds like
it required stick and shooting skills but that's a long time ago.

Regarding commercial pylon turns. Jay, these are actually kind of fun
to learn to do. Great for 'shooting' some ground object with a camera
aimed at your wing tip. With a wind, it's the only to keep a fixed
camera on a fixed ground point while turning

I just looked it up in the Airplane Flying Handbook where it describes
2 commercial pylon turn manuevers. One is "Eights Around Pylons", the
second is "Eights-on-Pylons" or "Pylon Eights". The first corresponds
to the turns around a point you learn in primary. The second is the
interesting one. Instead of varying your bank to compensate for wind
drift at a constant altitude, you vary your altitude and airspeed to
keep the wing tip on the pylon. But it can only be done at the "pivotal
altitude" that corresponds to your airspeed.

Easier to have someone demo it than to read about it. I learned it
during my commercial and it's probably my most performed manuever when
giving someone a ride. As in, "let's take a look at that building over
there". I do a "Turn-on-a-Point" to give my passenger a perfect view of
the building sitting under my tip thru as many turns as we want. Of
course you will put the object on top of your tip.

It's just a neat one to know and learn.

Dave S wrote:
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay

If you can fly to commercial standards you should be able to perform
the maneuver in question: Pylon turns.