Posted on 11/04/2004 1:55:59 PM PST by crushelits
| LITTLE EGG HARBOR, N.J. -- A National Guard F-16 fighter jet on a nighttime training mission Wednesday fired 25 rounds of ammunition that tore through an intermediate school. No one was injured. The military is investigating the incident that damaged Little Egg Harbor Intermediate School shortly after 11 p.m. Police were called to the area when a custodian heard what sounded like someone running across the roof of the school. The custodian was the only person in the school at the time.
It was unclear why the shots were fired, Webster said. |
The little woman and I were fishing by a railroad bridge across the Wabash river several years back, when all of a sudden our field of vision was filled with a fighter jet. The sound lag gave us no indication that he was comming. He scared the sh#t out of us for a nano second. I mean he was on the deck. I know they need places to train, but that kind of stuff is hard on old Vets.
Always a bonus if you scare the locals.
LOL!!!!!
"LOL...did he field dress it?"
Better yet-what did it taste like? I know, I know......just like chicken.
No complaints there. That is what I love about FR. Everyone gets to speculate...get slapped down with the facts...and in the end...come to their own conclusions. That is if the thread does not get pulled...LOL
Seconded.
The pick of at least three absolute gems on this thread!
Funniest thread of the day.
Am still laughing... :-)
Pete-R-Bilt has some awesome truckdriver stories about being lit-up while driving through puckerbrush country in Nevada.
The pilot and his commander need to start a career in the private sector.
Spock is deeply hurt and saddened by your cruel words.
Practice for the first gulf war, no doubt. ;^)
Careful there, this thread could easily get hijacked into a regional "best way to barbeque" azimuth thread... I can see mustard sauce vs. dry rub vs. tomato sauce raising its ugly head at any moment.
Live long, and keep yer finger off the red button.
Oh. . .never mind
Also, 7000 feet is not an altitude you would fire at a ground target from. Time will tell if this was pilot error (oops, arming switch was on and accidentally squeezed off a few shots), or aircraft malfunction (fired without input).
I'm not aware of any auto firing systems for the vulcan on an F-16, but it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Could have also been some kind of mis-identified target and th computer decided to shoot. (I don't think this was it, just giving a lot of possibilities.)
It's not hard on this old vet. I live on a course between a base a hundred miles away and a power station here that they pretend to bomb. Sometimes it sounds like they will fly right in my back door and out the front.
May God bless them all. Their lives and our security depends upon them being the best they can be. That is achieved only by constant practice.
Having to change my drawers after some of their bombing runs, seems a small price to pay.
As I said, my reference point is very outdated. I hung up my spurs when DU was a relatively new thing and only used on the tank shells (The Silver Bullet) and the 30mm anti-tank stuff for the Warthog and Apache.
They've been slinging that same 20mm Vulcan cannon on AF fighters going way back to the F-104 Starfighter in the early 60s. I've heard that they have wanted to replace all of them with the 25mm for many years - but, I guess the budget hasn't found room for it?
If I was a F-16 driver with empty pylons and some 20mm rounds for the gun looking at a bad guy tank with the option of calling the 'Hogs in to work their magic, I do believe I'd call the 'Hogs (or maybe aim for the tank tracks). That 30mm is no kidding, "Get Some", tank killing ordinance!
I'm sure you're right -- that had to be TP lead slug ammo. HEI or even a tracer would have started fires?
Gunrunner2: Electric jet, with electric firing pin, maybe electrical problem (it has happened before). . . . Again, I remind all, the F-16 has an electric firing pin, not a mechanical pin, and 25rnds is way, way unlikely for an inadvertent/unintentional burst. Physically not possible for the pilot to burst only 25rnds. . . . Oh, and it is possible the pilot was on the range and merely put the switch to the "arm" position. In that case the pilot should have been at an altitude and heading that would preclude any harm IF the gun went off. . . . Possible he was in the pattern and put the switch to arm and it cooked off.
e_engineer: Googling for M61A1 failures found no instances of unintentional discharge malfunctions, but wire chafing was an issue with F-16s in the early years. . . . Hope for this pilot's sake that it turns out to be an electrical malfunction.
Rokke: but like I said, the same switchology has been in place since I first flew the jet in the early 90's. I honestly have never heard of anyone accidently shooting the gun while lasing a target . . . I.should add that you normally need to have the gun selected for the gun to fire. And if you've selected the gun, you probably aren't lasing anything.
Different aircraft (F-4C). Similar circumstances. Kieth59 might remember this. The pilot went to Master Arm and instantly dropped his munitions on a South Texas rancher's field. Munitions had recently performed maintenance. Followup found two pins, one a "live" ECS connection and the other the inert arm circuit, had been forced into the same hole in the female connector. When the pilot went to Master Arm the switch was bypassed. The little blue practice bombs dropped. Cows were unhappy. Rancher was mad as hell.
Man, am I jealous. They have got to keep the hogs around. There was a thread about hogs a while back and someone said that hogs weren't the nicest looking plane. Someone replied "The A-10, Go ugly early."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.