Live Gun Practice

So yesterday I strapped on an F-15 all loaded up with live bullets and went out to practice shooting at a target over the ocean.  Doing the preflight I look up into the magazine and there are 940 huge shells 7 inches long all loaded up ready to fire.  Our gun is a six barrell electrically fired gatlin gun that shoots 6,000 rounds a min.  That's 100 high explosive bullets every second.  Combine that with a great radar computed lead sight and a pilot who can make it happen and it's a very lethal weapon.

The way we shot is one jet had a target (30ft x 2ft) that it towed a couple thousand feet back.  Then it started out high and went into a tight spiral at 350kts for about four minutes down to the floor.  Two of us would then take turns cycling behind it, lining up on the little banner (which was hard to see) and taking a one second burst, then repositioning outside the turn circle.  It was pretty cool to see these three jets swirling down with one taking a shot every 15 seconds.  The first time I rolled in and pulled the trigger I was so concentrated on what I was doing I forgot the gun was actually going to shoot, so when I heard this loud "brrrraaa" and felt the jet shake a little it surprised me.  When the other guy took his shot you could see the smoke pouring off the wing which was pretty cool too. 

The end result was that I was very encouraged by this exercise.  I ended up having direct hits on that tiny banner (much smaller than an actual airplane in profile) half the time and within the scoring cone on all of the passes.  I figure if we can hit something that small ( really could hardly see it) then tracking an airplane is definitely possible.

Low Altitude Raging

Yesterday I went out for a LowAt mission.  It was some of the most fun I've ever had (and I've done some cool stuff).  It was basically a flight that was required to be cleared down to 500 ft AGL (above ground level) solo so I flew it in a two seater with an instructor in the back.  The only requirement was that I fly at 500 ft safely so that left a lot of leeway.  We have a bunch of airspace out in the desert with mountains and stuff.  So I basically just treated it as my playground; going as fast and as low as I wanted, wherever I wanted.  Shooting up over ridges, high-G turns around mountains, following river valleys, I figured as long as the guy in the back seat didn't say anything I was good to go (I think he was having fun too).  Then I found a little canyon and went zipping through it. 

It's pretty rare that you get to take one of the highest performance fighter jets in the world out for a joy ride.

Sentry Eagle 2007

We just finished a Large Force Exercise here at Kingsley Field. It was very similar to Red Flag, which if you don't know what that is let me briefly explain. We basically created several full up air battles. Imagine an 8 ship of Eagles taking off, meeting up with the Tanker to refuel, checking in with AWACS and starting to patrol a target they're supposed to protect. Then they see some bandits on the radar and push out to intercept them, soon they figure out there are 20 hostile bandits coming in and begin to engage them which inevitably turns into mass craziness with planes swirling in individual fights from 40,000 ft to just above the ground.

It was awesome to see this happen; we had jets from all over, from Florida to Hawaii, other F-15s, F-16 Vipers, F-18 Hornets, tankers, Awacs, C-21s to act as strikers, and over 1000 support personnell and all there equipment. It was very crowded here! The exercise lasted for five days of awesome flying and five nights of great parties. I only got to fly during one fight to see what it was like, but I also went up in one of the tankers one day and took some cool pictures from the other side of the business.

I also went and qualified as an expert marksman with the M9 pistol this morning, that was cool. Maybe now those army dudes can't make fun of the "chair force."

Water Survival Practice

The whole squadron went up last week to a nearby lake to practice some of our water survival training. It was quite a party we had going on. We had some jet skis to drag us through the water simulating getting dragged by our parachutes (and of course we used them later for some jet ski BFM). We even had a helicopter that I vectored in and popped smoke so they would come and pick us up out of the water. But then it broke down and couldn't get us (where's Kevin Costner when you need him?). It turned out that there was a reporter there and the next day I ended up headlining the front page (don't ask me why).
Most of the squadron ended up camping out that night on the lake and we had a great time hanging out together. I ended up sleeping out under the stars on a little beach, which was absolutely beautiful. I started thinking about how truly AWEsome the universe is. It seems to me that each star is a beacon shining across inconceivable distances to remind us of God's astronomical grace. To try and comprehend their full scope and power makes it amazing to this guy that the one who created them cares so intimately for me.