I live sort of half way between Eglin and Tyndall but am out of their usual flight patterns. I do sometimes see a Hercules in the daytime although they usually arrive around dusk. This one was flying right over the house.Puff the Magic Dragon!
I can remember in the early 60s watching a firepower demonstration at Eglin. One thing which was a crowd pleaser was they would have a Hercules land in an overgrown field, reverse it’s props and just before stopping on a dime, it would then roar away again.
That was over 50 years ago.
Yet they can’t find the money to upgrade to an AC-130J.
Me likey. Fire from above. Oooowww Raahhhh! Pity any fool inside the circle.
Kinda wonder why back during B-17’s massive bomb runs to Germany they didn’t have several “Old Lady 666” kind to fight off the German fighters?
Ping.
This is the absolutely wrong approach. Keep costs down and use dumb weapons. Scare the crap out of the enemy, screw collateral damage. Muslims should either be dead, crippled or submitting in fear. Do this without raising my taxes.
First flew in 1955.
Who are they going to use this on? US?
My favorite AC-130:
The AC-130A Spectre is a C-130 converted to a gunship, primarily for night attacks against ground targets. To enhance its armament’s effectiveness, it used various sensors, a target acquisition system, and infrared and low-light television systems. The versatile C-130 Hercules, originally designed in the 1950s as an assault transport, was adapted for a variety of missions, including weather mapping and reconnaissance, mid-air space capsule recovery, search and rescue, ambulance service, drone launching, mid-air refueling of helicopters, and as a gunship. The C-130 could transport up to 92 combat troops and their gear or 45,000 pounds of cargo. Where facilities were inadequate, the Hercules could deliver cargo by parachute or by a using a low-altitude parachute extraction system without landing.
The crew of this AC-130A Spectre gunship, named Azrael (Azrael, in the Koran, is the angel of death who severs the soul from the body) displayed courage and heroism during the closing hours of Operation Desert Storm. On Feb. 26, 1991, Coalition ground forces were driving the Iraqi army out of Kuwait. Azrael was sent to the Al Jahra highway between Kuwait City and Basrah, Iraq, to intercept the convoys of tanks, trucks, buses and cars fleeing the battle. Facing numerous enemy batteries of SA-6 and SA-8 surface-to-air missiles, and 37mm and 57mm radar-guided anti-aircraft artillery, the crew attacked the enemy skillfully, inflicting significant damage on the convoys. The crew’s heroic efforts left much of the enemy’s equipment destroyed or unserviceable, contributing to the defeat of the Iraqi forces. On Feb. 28, 1991, Iraq agreed to a cease-fire.
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=412
I live sort of half way between Eglin and Tyndall but am out of their usual flight patterns. I do sometimes see a Hercules in the daytime although they usually arrive around dusk. This one was flying right over the house.