Today I finished the roughly 3 week journey that has been the Aerial Gunnery syllabus. It consists of 6 dual flights and two solo flights, and it's pretty amazing that they let us go out there by ourselves. Some might say scary...
The gun pattern is a holdback from the cool old days of flying... in fact, they used to actually stick .50 cal machine gun pods under our wings and let us have it. Nowadays it's all pretend, but still pretty badass.
The pattern consists of four T-2s that are doing the gunning, and one T-2 "tractor" that is pulling a 50 foot long banner with a 1000' cable. The tractor flies at 12,000 feet at 150 knots (about as slow as we can go without putting our flaps or gear down). The four other planes fly out in formation. Passing 12,000 feet, the leader applies left and right rudder to "fishtail", and the other three planes take that as their cue to break formation and form up 1000' in trail behind the plane in front. We decelerate to 200 knots and climb up to 15,000 feet (3000' above the tractor). We are heading at a perpendicular heading to the tractor, and he passes in front of and below the leader. The tractor is driven by the "Range Safety Officer", or "RSO". He'll clear the lead in, and the lead will call "One in, spacer pass right, perch left". He'll simultaneously go to full power, overbank beyond 90 degrees, and pull 15 units. The goal is to lose 3000 feet while accelerating to 300 knots passing 200 feet wide of the tractor (in this case, the "pass right" means just that) with 50' of step up. You're overtaking the tractor with 150 knots of closure, and he looks like he's standing still to you as you whiz by.
Seven seconds after lead flashes his wing, dash-2 repeats, and so on. With the increase of speed each plane gets in the dive, there should be 18 seconds of time separating each plane as they pass the tractor. Once lead passes the tractor, he calls "One off" and counts off a couple seconds... then it's "Up and up stop" for 16 degrees of nose high, "roll and roll stop" for 65 degrees angle of bank, and "pitch and g, pitch and g" for 2.25 g's. You hold this instrument scan until you gain 1500 feet in altitude. You then look over your left ejection seat handle for "first look", where you reacquire the tractor. Then it's a quick look up to the perch to find your interval. Since we're the first plane through this pass, there's nobody in front of us yet so we look back at the tractor (he looks pretty small...) and wait until we are 10-20 degrees in front of his wingline... You are now heading almost 180 degrees back toward the tractor, and have gained 2200-2600' in altitude. Then it's "High Reversal" where you reverse the stick as fast as you can in the opposite direction to begin your turn back parallel with the tractor and it's heading. You're looking for a solid 15 unit pull and 15,000 feet. Once there, you are now on the "perch" heading the same direction as the tractor, he's off to your right and low, you're 3000 feet above him, and it's time to come in. You need to find all the other planes first. The guy behind you is somewhere near first look coming up, the guy in front of you should be at low reversal, and your opposite should just be passing the tractor calling "off". In this case, since we're first, dash-2 is coming through first look /slash/ high rev, dash-3 is calling "off" passing the tractor, and there's no one in front of us yet because dash-4 is still on the spacer pass and hasn't entered yet. So we bank in, pulling through the tractor until we're abeam the banner, and start our low reversal. It's a nice easy turn to put your nose on the banner, with about 15 degrees of dive angle. From 1400' to 1100' and 23 - 30 degrees aft of the banner you're in the firing "cone" and we squeeze the trigger to unlease a hail of imaginary bullets upon the unsuspecting banner. Once you get to 1100' you ease the angle of bank to pass behind and above the tractor, and start all over with "One off".
The gun pattern is a great "SA" (situational awareness) as well as confidence builder. On gun one you're just trying to find everybody, and have no idea what's going on. On my two solos my "SA" soda-straw I was looking through had expanded greatly, and I was picking up things I hadn't seen before... "Oh yeah, there's my interval, and he's started his low reversal..." It was very cool.
The gun pattern is a holdback from the cool old days of flying... in fact, they used to actually stick .50 cal machine gun pods under our wings and let us have it. Nowadays it's all pretend, but still pretty badass.
The pattern consists of four T-2s that are doing the gunning, and one T-2 "tractor" that is pulling a 50 foot long banner with a 1000' cable. The tractor flies at 12,000 feet at 150 knots (about as slow as we can go without putting our flaps or gear down). The four other planes fly out in formation. Passing 12,000 feet, the leader applies left and right rudder to "fishtail", and the other three planes take that as their cue to break formation and form up 1000' in trail behind the plane in front. We decelerate to 200 knots and climb up to 15,000 feet (3000' above the tractor). We are heading at a perpendicular heading to the tractor, and he passes in front of and below the leader. The tractor is driven by the "Range Safety Officer", or "RSO". He'll clear the lead in, and the lead will call "One in, spacer pass right, perch left". He'll simultaneously go to full power, overbank beyond 90 degrees, and pull 15 units. The goal is to lose 3000 feet while accelerating to 300 knots passing 200 feet wide of the tractor (in this case, the "pass right" means just that) with 50' of step up. You're overtaking the tractor with 150 knots of closure, and he looks like he's standing still to you as you whiz by.
Seven seconds after lead flashes his wing, dash-2 repeats, and so on. With the increase of speed each plane gets in the dive, there should be 18 seconds of time separating each plane as they pass the tractor. Once lead passes the tractor, he calls "One off" and counts off a couple seconds... then it's "Up and up stop" for 16 degrees of nose high, "roll and roll stop" for 65 degrees angle of bank, and "pitch and g, pitch and g" for 2.25 g's. You hold this instrument scan until you gain 1500 feet in altitude. You then look over your left ejection seat handle for "first look", where you reacquire the tractor. Then it's a quick look up to the perch to find your interval. Since we're the first plane through this pass, there's nobody in front of us yet so we look back at the tractor (he looks pretty small...) and wait until we are 10-20 degrees in front of his wingline... You are now heading almost 180 degrees back toward the tractor, and have gained 2200-2600' in altitude. Then it's "High Reversal" where you reverse the stick as fast as you can in the opposite direction to begin your turn back parallel with the tractor and it's heading. You're looking for a solid 15 unit pull and 15,000 feet. Once there, you are now on the "perch" heading the same direction as the tractor, he's off to your right and low, you're 3000 feet above him, and it's time to come in. You need to find all the other planes first. The guy behind you is somewhere near first look coming up, the guy in front of you should be at low reversal, and your opposite should just be passing the tractor calling "off". In this case, since we're first, dash-2 is coming through first look /slash/ high rev, dash-3 is calling "off" passing the tractor, and there's no one in front of us yet because dash-4 is still on the spacer pass and hasn't entered yet. So we bank in, pulling through the tractor until we're abeam the banner, and start our low reversal. It's a nice easy turn to put your nose on the banner, with about 15 degrees of dive angle. From 1400' to 1100' and 23 - 30 degrees aft of the banner you're in the firing "cone" and we squeeze the trigger to unlease a hail of imaginary bullets upon the unsuspecting banner. Once you get to 1100' you ease the angle of bank to pass behind and above the tractor, and start all over with "One off".
The gun pattern is a great "SA" (situational awareness) as well as confidence builder. On gun one you're just trying to find everybody, and have no idea what's going on. On my two solos my "SA" soda-straw I was looking through had expanded greatly, and I was picking up things I hadn't seen before... "Oh yeah, there's my interval, and he's started his low reversal..." It was very cool.
