Just giving Airpower guy some grief. From him:
Jonah,
Re: strafing an elementary school.
Well, THAT would be a spirited debrief.
A couple of things:
-having a school 3.5 miles from a military firing range doesn’t strike me as
the wisest zoning plan, and
-night range rides are challenging enough for guys who fly regularly, much
less Guardsmen who may not do this as often.
A nighttime bomb/strafe pass is disorienting enough as it is…sit in a
chair in a dark room, put a bag over your head, lean over one arm of the
chair, then roll out and stand up while staying bent 90 degrees at the
waist. That’s about what it feels like to roll in on even a shallow pass in
the dark. Note: do this alone. Otherwise, Cosmo and the Fair Jessica might
start wondering about you…
This was a goof, obviously, but if he only fired 25 rounds, with a Vulcan
cannon, that was a really short burst, which leads me to believe he probably
thought something was wrong as soon as he pulled the trigger. Also, the
press reports said the bullets were made of lead. Um, I don’t think
so–steel more’n likely.
Anyway, night ops can be really squirrelly even if you’re current/proficient
and night range rides involve a lot of unnatural actions…thank God it was
only 20mm and that it happened on Wednesday, not Tuesday. Otherwise, I would not be surprised it being characterized as another attempt by Karl Rove to
intimidate Pennsylvania voters.
Cheers,
Instapilot