What an awesome display.....

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mcdonl

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I think that short of a gun show, I saw the largest display of weapons I have ever seen.

My daughter and I were on our ATV's at a local pit/trail system that is also used by the Army reserves... when we rounded the top of a hill we saw around 10 trucks with what I believe to be M60's mounted on the back of them... 100's of soldiers marching in various directions all carrying M16's and 2helicopter gun ships... not sure of what type of chopper they were....

We were greated with a STOP indicated by a raised hand... then a friendly wave when we stopped and got off our machines to watch for a bit...

We of course left the area, but it was awesome. They must have just arrived because for the remained of the day there was plenty of automatic weapons fire and what seemed to be approach/take off drills with the birds.

Amazing.
 
That must have been fun! I just love watching displays like that. Airshows though are my favorite.

BTW - The M-60 has mostly been replaced by the M-240. ;)
 
Where I live we get Apaches, Cobras, Blackhawks and even the occasional Chinook practicing low level mountain flying. It's pretty cool, especially the Cobras, I always liked those birds. A few months ago I was driving a long and a C-130 did a low level pass right along with the road. I don't think he was much more than 100 feet off the ground. Then a little while ago, we had an F-15E doing bombing runs on some buildings for about an hour. That was really cool. It was like a free airshow.

The sad thing is folks actually complain about this stuff. I guess the noise bothers them or something. I love it. The power of these machines is amazing. Especially when you get a good look at the guns on some of those gunships. Makes me glad I'm not one of the ones hiding out from these things in the mountains of Afghanistan.
 
Makes me glad I'm not one of the ones hiding out from these things in the mountains of Afghanistan.
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My daughter and I thought the same thing when we saw the troops walking down a trail... she pointed to my hip (Where my KT P3AT always is....) and said "that wouldnt do much...." when we were discussing how scary that would be if they were NOT on our side.

Dr 505... thanks for the info... I know little about military arms, other then the fact one of the more popular air craft mounted guns are made about 30 minutes from my house...
 
A few months ago I was driving a long and a C-130 did a low level pass right along with the road. I don't think he was much more than 100 feet off the ground.... The sad thing is folks actually complain about this stuff. I guess the noise bothers them or something. I love it. The power of these machines is amazing.
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That part of the country? Doubt it was less than 300ft, which is still pretty dang low. As for the noise, I know what -130's do to our squadron building at 500ft; don't wanna know what it would do to my house at 300... And I'm glad you enjoy watching it. We enjoy flying it. :cool:
 
If you post where you met them you would most likely have active, reserve and retired military telling you who uses that area / training range.

What you probably encountered was a FARP, the M-60 is still used by some CH-60 for door guns, at least we still had some 4 years ago in 82nd Aviation, but they were supposed to get replaced.

Yeah, it would suck if the army wasn't your friend. But civilians don't stand and fight because those who do are either very well trained or die.
 
ColinthePilot said:
That part of the country? Doubt it was less than 300ft, which is still pretty dang low. As for the noise, I know what -130's do to our squadron building at 500ft; don't wanna know what it would do to my house at 300... And I'm glad you enjoy watching it. We enjoy flying it. :cool:
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I'm USAF retired. Back when I was on active duty and we'd deploy somewhere for training . . . if the civilians in the area complained about the noise . . . we would tell them that "that's the sound of Freedom!" . . . .
 
Shadow, I was not sure if it would have been appropriate to announce where or not. It is an odd relationship the community has with the base... all through out the base there are abandoned buildings and foundations so it was once an heavily used area, but now it is all posted. The State Police patrols the area, but it is used by us civilians as an ATV trail system and a shooting range.

Over the past 2 years more and more people use it as a range, and they are not as respectful as some of us and would leave a lot of litter. I have sense joined a local club and do most of my shooting there, and I am glad as since the drills have been going on the army has had to clean up other peoples messes and I am happy to know it was not my mess.

It is possible that they pick up thier brass? I look for casings but never find any and they shoot thousands of rounds.
 
It is possible that they pick up thier brass? I look for casings but never find any and they shoot thousands of rounds.
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Oh yeah brass call!! every peice accounted for or the S%^t is hittin the fan lol
 
Then a little while ago, we had an F-15E doing bombing runs on some buildings for about an hour. That was really cool. It was like a free airshow.
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A good friend of mine has a house on Lake Oconee (central GA) within sight of the dam. They regularly fly F-18s down the lake and make fake bombing runs on the dam, usually 3 planes at a time. They're also regularly seen over our hunting lease, ~10 miles east of the lake. Last year, we were sitting out on the dove field and had one fly the length of it at about 1000 feet.

Several years ago, I was fishing on the Congaree River in SC. We had a couple of Apaches come down the river channel below tree top level (river ~200-250 feet wide). I can still remember what that thumping felt like in my chest.

Absolutely amazing watching our military in action, even if it is just a training exercise.

Wyman
 
I see C130's all the time, national guard has an outfit about 5 miles from me.I also went to my first airshow at Barksdale AFB last May, AMAZING,the F-15E can shake you to the core when it passes overhead. Saw the blue angels as well, my favorite was Fat Albert.
 
Go to Ft. Bragg during All-American week sometime, and watch the JFEX demo there.

It's pretty cool, as long as you don't have to participate in it.

You will see an airborne op, complete with gunships, a jump, heavy drops, and arty that used to shoot off the DZ. Then some of the guys who jumped will assault a building or something for the crowd. They usually have a static display with vehicles, weapons, snipers in their miserably hot ghillie suits and stuff like that.
 
Quote:
"A few months ago I was driving a long and a C-130 did a low level pass right along with the road. I don't think he was much more than 100 feet off the ground.... The sad thing is folks actually complain about this stuff. I guess the noise bothers them or something. I love it. The power of these machines is amazing."

That part of the country? Doubt it was less than 300ft, which is still pretty dang low. As for the noise, I know what -130's do to our squadron building at 500ft; don't wanna know what it would do to my house at 300... And I'm glad you enjoy watching it. We enjoy flying it.
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Western End of NC. It probably was 300-500 feet. Those aircraft are so large, it makes them seem lower. It was low enough though that I could see every detail and panel line quite clearly.

Stay safe up there! If you ever fly practice out this way, know that we're enjoying the show. :D


if the civilians in the area complained about the noise . . . we would tell them that "that's the sound of Freedom!" . . .
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You know Migs and Mils make a lot of noise too. :) Just kidding. I love seeing what my tax money pays for.
 
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I live in Knoxville, TN. There is an Air Force Base at Alcoa. McGhee Tyson is the home of a number of KC135 and it is not uncommon to see one of them fly over; but what is really neat is you are in the area of the base is to see 3 or 4 Wart Hogs A-10's. They are flying so low and so SLOW, it seems that they sould fall our of the air. But boy them things are awsome. I have often thought that if one of them was after me all he would see would be a$$ hole because I'd be diggen me hole to crawl into.:what::)
 
The Canadian Forces base named Valcartier is a few kilometers from my house behind some hills. All year long we hear bombing, when it's calm we clearly hear the gunshots and a few months ago some A10 Warthogs came training for a day or two, how do I know, the sound, BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! Oh yeah baby. I love it. I saw one that night flying just over the house, I recognized the distinctive large wingspan and slow speed but big sound. every plane that lands to the airport turns over my house. :D
Oh and I'm right under the CF-18's flight path. When they get out to chase something I get to know it. The heli's too.
 
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I was downstairs at home messing with my wireless router and at first throught something was tearing to roof off my cabin before I recognized the sound of jet engines. When I made it outside the noise was subsiding, then I saw the underside of a f-18 break over the treeline and dissappear on the opposite side of the property less than 1k feet off the ground. Then came the supersonic boom. Then anoter jet, then another. 4 hornets, hauling tail through the mountains. That has to be a whole new level of fun.

I remember seeing a C-5 Galaxy on approach, you could see him a mile out and he just seemed to float.
 
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I still remember, 30 years later, being stationed at White Sands Missle Range, NM, and while driving back from Holloman AFB seeing a B-52 on final approach. It just kept getting bigger, and bigger, and louder, and LOUDER as it crossed over the highway (Rt 70/82)...
 
1974 i was on offut air force base when a tornadoe was coming through the area. sop was to fly the hardware outa harms way. seeing all those buff's leaving the ground 2 wide one after the other scared us good we thought someone had pushed the button
 
I used to live near Westover Air Base in MA, the bianual air was amazing. The C-5s are HUGE. For those of you who have been to the Oshkosh Air show/Fly-in, Ardy and Ed's a 50' style drive-in place, is right under the pattern for runway 9-27 you won't see to many big jets, but the little prop planes are constantly overhead. There are also WW2 reanactors, and the pyrotecric airshow at the end of the week.
 
What pit was this at?

can't be to far from me either....

I've been in the GDAS plant in Saco as part of my work.... pretty cool to see the gatling guns used on the A-10....
 
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