re: AC-130H Gunship on a Hadji run

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GT, I've always wondered if the bad guys can't hear the C-130 flying overhead and that's why they seem so nonchalant walking around (until the first round hits, of course). Is the plane so high it is impossible to hear it or does it have some type of engine suppressors muffling the sound?

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This is a good question.

I think they fly at 10K to 15K, too high to hear the engines from the ground. And they only fly at night. The round travels faster than the speed of sound, so the first indication is the explosion.


When I was in Fallujah I was up on a rooftop with our forward air controller one night. We saw about 15 to 20 bad guys move across the street into a house about 300 meters down the road. The FAC looked at me and said check this shite out dude. He called up the spectre and talked him on to the house. Then the pilot shot an infrared beam down to the ground to confirm the target location. The beam was on the house next door to the target building. The FAC told the pilot "no, it's the one next door." So the beam slid over to the next and house and the FAC said "Yep, that's the one. Light it up." About a minute later 105mm artillery shells started pounding the building. Then a few seconds later you could the soft boom.......boom.......boom from the sky. It was crazy.


CSB

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GT, I've always wondered if the bad guys can't hear the C-130 flying overhead

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probably not. They have a bunch of C-130s at Maxwell AFB near my house and they are flying all the time. You dont ever really hear them much at all; nothing like a jet.

you can usually see the C-130 lights in the night sky though. not sure if they use those during real sorties.