It’s hard for me as a born and bred, high speed, low drag, strike fighter guy to admit this, but if I was a ground pounder? In a pinch? In a relatively permissive surface-to-air threat environment? I maybe wouldn’t want a Hornet on call. I’d maybe ask for an AC-130, if one was available.
I mean, a 2000 pound bomb leaves an impression, no doubt about it. A couple of them even more so. But one or two big thumps, bad guys die in clumps, but then the air goes home.
With an AC-130 overhead, you not only get loiter time, you also get ordnance. Not heavy ordnance, but 40mm cannons, 105mm cannons and a 25mm gun is not to be sneezed at. Taken together, these can result in bad guys getting dirtnapped in detail. In a hard spot, these big, lumbering birds can be angels on the shoulders of ground troops.
Funny, that.
Angels on our shoulders.
Thanks, dwas. 
From what I hear a P3 is pretty valuable to the grunts nowadays…..
One of the AC-130 squadrons has a great motto:
“You can run, but you’ll only die tired.”
CAPT,
Thought you might enjoy those pics..
…and perhaps of specific interest to you, sir:
“The Hercules also holds the record for the largest and heaviest aircraft to land on an aircraft carrier. In November 1963, a C-130 landed without using the ship’s arresting gear on the USS Forrestal (CVA-59). The pilot, Lt. James Flatley III, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his participation.” -Wikipedia-
Look, Ma, no wire!
Lex,
Slow, lumbering, propeller-driven aircraft seem to have a very valuable place in our arsenal. Is there a more effective ASW platform than the P-3?
Why are we replacing them with planes that don?
Lex,
Slow, lumbering, propeller-driven aircraft seem to have a very valuable place in our arsenal. Is there a more effective ASW platform than the P-3?
Why are we replacing them with planes that don’t seem to have the virtues? Isn’t “go fast” always the opposite of a long time on station?
I think this is the show:
http://military.discovery.com/tvlistings/episode.jsp?episode=15&cpi=109255&gid=0&channel=MIL
If this is the one, it has a history of the fixed-wing gunships: AC-47, AC-119, and the AC-130. Truly an amazing platform…
Incredible images – angels indeed.
Oh and of course, plane pr0n…
Incredible photos.
Angel-Decoys at:
this URL
In a hard spot, these big, lumbering birds can be angels on the shoulders of ground troops.
And the GUTS needed to fly these slow birds is absolutely amazing… God Bless each and every crew member of a 130.
Afghanistan ops video
SIE
Those pics were taken south of Navarre Beach east of P’cola. At night from the new bay bridge-or any place you can get a clear view across the eastern part of Pensacola Bay to the northeast- you can see them when they do live fire on the western range at Eglin. Awesome sight.
Gee Lex you need a gig on a Joint Staff. The Army (especially those break down the front door types) goes nowhere without these guys on any forcible entry..Doctrine.
B2
If you ever get a chance to hear COL Danny McKnight (commander of the 3rd Ranger Bn in Somalia) speak, take advantage of it. He’s got stuff about the limitations they were put under that will keep you from ever voting for another Clinton (or worse) Democrat in your lifetime. http://www.dannymcknight.com
Just heard him at a conference last week – his task force was put under stupid artificial limits and they weren’t allowed to take along an AC-130. If they had, October 3/4 1993 would have ended much differently. We might not have a couple of Medal of Honor winners – but we wouldn’t have needed to, either.
Those pictures are goin’ on my screen saver slide show here at work. Very Cool.
Those pics were taken off Navarre Beach, which is just east of Hurlburt field (where Doolittle and crew learned to take off from a carrier deck).
If you can get a good view of the western part the Eglin range (harder to do nowadays with the development), you can see a pretty spectcular light show when the AC-130s are conducting live fire.
God Bless American….and God Bless Our Troops!
>>high speed, low drag
Not to be difficult, and my math may be off, but each of the C-130′s turboprops is rated at 4,508hp.
At 550 ft-lb/sec per hp, thats 9.92mm ft-lb/sec of power for all four.
Max speed is 610km/hr, or 555 ft/sec
Since power is Force * distance/time, the Spectre’s props generate 17,900 pounds of thrust. Thrust = drag in level flight, so the maximum drag of a Spectre is about 18k pounds.
Janes says *each* of the F404′s in the F/A-18 puts out 18k pounds of thrust, or 36k for the pair.
Implies anytime you’re in level flight in your Hornet with power > 50%, you’re the high drag platform, and the Spectre is a model of sleek aerodynamic efficiency…
Anyone know anything about the first regularly effective incidence of ‘angels on our shoulders’, ie the RAF and the USAAF in Normandy in 1944, though admittedly much of the doctrine was taught to the USAAF after the RAF’s experience in North Africa and Italy ?
Pete.
First I’d heard of it, but the timeline makes sense. Would have been hard to do in the Great War, since communications were tenuous at best, and it would have taken time to develop in WWII, since such doctrine always moves in fits and starts, breaking paradigms along the way.
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