Welcome to the Pilot Spec Ops discussion blog. The purpose of this blog is to foster discussion between future Air Force officers interested in flying spec ops aircraft and current pilots in flying such planes. The views expressed in this blog are solely the opinions of the individual authors and not of the United States Air Force nor the Department of Defense.
I have had so many rewarding days flying the AC-130U gunship that it is hard to pick my favortite. So, I will give you a brief description of one that comes to mind. I was flying a mission in Iraq during the big second push to regain the city of Fallujah. We were covering a mission when the flight engineer and I noticed a huge fire fight errupt on the ground not too far from our current position. We got cleared off our current mission and were able to get in contact with the friendly marines on the ground who were being ambushed. My crew was able to lay down fire power on the enemy so the marines were able to get to a safe location and no one in their untit was killed. We were told later that if we had not been overhead and provided fire power from above, that the marine unit would probably have had several casualties. For me it is very rewarding knowing that I can protect our friendly forces on the ground and the fire power from my plane has saved the lives of guys on the ground. This experience is just one example, but I have hundreds of others that are similar.
One of the worst days I have had was when I was flying in Afghanistan and we had been cleared to RTB since our mission was complete and it took 3.5 hours to get back to our staging base. My plane had left Afghan air space and we were .5 hours from landing when we heard on the SATCOM radio a call for a gunship to come in since the guys on the ground were taking heavy fire power and they already had casualities. We did not have enough gas to go back for the 3+ hour flight and there were no tankers available and the sun was coming up. My crew wanted to go back but we were ordered not too. It was horrible to hear the guy calling for help and hearing the fire fight in the back ground, but not being able to help. This fire fight was the one that happened during Operation Anaconda when we lost a helo and a bunch of spec ops teams came under fire. I still feel a little haunted by the voice, since if we had been over head the outcome would have not been so deadly for the guys on the ground.
3 comments:
What has your best day so far looked like?
What about your worst day?
I have had so many rewarding days flying the AC-130U gunship that it is hard to pick my favortite. So, I will give you a brief description of one that comes to mind. I was flying a mission in Iraq during the big second push to regain the city of Fallujah. We were covering a mission when the flight engineer and I noticed a huge fire fight errupt on the ground not too far from our current position. We got cleared off our current mission and were able to get in contact with the friendly marines on the ground who were being ambushed. My crew was able to lay down fire power on the enemy so the marines were able to get to a safe location and no one in their untit was killed. We were told later that if we had not been overhead and provided fire power from above, that the marine unit would probably have had several casualties. For me it is very rewarding knowing that I can protect our friendly forces on the ground and the fire power from my plane has saved the lives of guys on the ground. This experience is just one example, but I have hundreds of others that are similar.
One of the worst days I have had was when I was flying in Afghanistan and we had been cleared to RTB since our mission was complete and it took 3.5 hours to get back to our staging base. My plane had left Afghan air space and we were .5 hours from landing when we heard on the SATCOM radio a call for a gunship to come in since the guys on the ground were taking heavy fire power and they already had casualities. We did not have enough gas to go back for the 3+ hour flight and there were no tankers available and the sun was coming up. My crew wanted to go back but we were ordered not too. It was horrible to hear the guy calling for help and hearing the fire fight in the back ground, but not being able to help. This fire fight was the one that happened during Operation Anaconda when we lost a helo and a bunch of spec ops teams came under fire. I still feel a little haunted by the voice, since if we had been over head the outcome would have not been so deadly for the guys on the ground.
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