Larrymc Loc: Mississippi

The airport nearby gets weekly visits from USAF 4th Special Operations Command AC-130 Spooky Hercules Gunships. I've been fortunate enough to get some pretty decent shots of these rare birds during their flight operations here. All shots taken with my Pentax K-3 and Sigma 18-200 F3.5-6.3 DC OS HSM.

Hope you like them.

Climbing out from 16R at JAN

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Climbing out from 16R a closer view

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Final to 34L at JAN

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Short Final to 34L at JAN the business side

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Starting the flare 34L at JAN

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flyguy Loc: Las Cruces, New Mexico

The last three images look like the Flight Engineer had shut off all four of the fuel pumps and the engines aren't running. I joke of course, having been a former P-3 Orion Flight Engineer and having identical engines on that aircraft.

Larrymc Loc: Mississippi

Wellllll, I wanted to make damn sure the operator didn't get into any "motion blur" oscillations. I probably could have dropped the shutter speed down to a round 1/200 and dropped my ISO and been OK....LOL. Or they could have been practicing their engine out proceedures....LOL. Thanks for the comment!

Stash Loc: South Central Massachusetts

I got to fly on the C-130 quite a bit when I was in the Air Force. One of my favorite planes.
Thanks for sharing your photos.

Larrymc Loc: Mississippi

You are most welcome. Thanks for the comment! I was sitting in my living room reading yesterday around dusk and heard one in the traffic pattern.

Larry

Merlin1300 Loc: New England, But Now & Forever SoTX

I got a couple of flights in the AC-130 in the spring of 1997 over Albania
Stationed out of Brendisi, We always went hot half-way over the Adriatic, firing test rounds out of the forward mounted 40mm canon
As well as one round out of the rear mounted 105
Their Motto?
You can Run - - but you'll only die tired - -
True That !

Larrymc Loc: Mississippi

That must have been a blast....LOL!! That is one bad assed aircraft! I read that the fire control system can track the 40mm and the 105 round all the way to impact. The AC-130U mission computers have more than 609,000 lines of code, I think that's more than any other aircraft in the inventory.

Thanks for the comment!

Larry

Merlin1300 Loc: New England, But Now & Forever SoTX

Twas amazing - -
Crew Chief wouldn't let me get too close - - but the 105 was mounted in gyroscopic hydraulic gimbals
Although it looked like the gun was dancing - - IT was really the stable platform, and the airplane was bouncing around it.
Ya can't imagine unless ya been there - -