Fighter Pilot saves NJ from Intermediate School

[Merusk]

Seriously, what the fuck?

While I can understand and appreciate the need to have "hot" aircraft flying in D.C. airspace, this guy was a long fucking way from D.C.  On top of that, the article says he 'strafed' the building meaning it wasn't just an, 'Oopsie, pulled the trigger, wonder where those bullets will land.' type of thing.

[Murgos]

If you actually would READ the article you would know that the pilot was supposed to be strafing a target 3 and 1/2 miles over at a training facility.

Not to excuse him (incompetance of that sort should be criminal) but your post seems to ignore that in an effort turn the incident into some sort of conspiracy theory.

[ajax34i]

It was also 10 PM, not broad daylight, making the pilot's incompetence a little less outrageous.  Not much, though.

[geldonyetich]

Come now, you can't tell me that when you were in intermediate school you didn't want to join the military so you could perform a strafing run by "accident".

[Murgos]

Heh, I certainly daydreamed it a few times, though I think I usually used napalm because it sticks better.

[Righ]

Even had the school been mis-identified as the target, the altitude alone is beyond the M61's effective range. The gun is designed primarily as a short range air to air weapon, and isn't suited to ground strafing from that altitude. At 100 rounds per second, that's a quarter second of trigger, which probably was an unintentional bump of the trigger. Even at stall airspeeds, from 7000 feet that will strafe the ground.

[Murgos]

Eh?  2000 meters is well within the effective range of a 20mm canon (of course that would require the pilot to be perpendicular to the ground and directly over the target).  If what you're trying to say is that if it was a deliberate strafing run on the school he (the pilot) wouldn't have been at 7000 feet then I agree with you.  Otherwise I don't think I understand what your trying to say.

Also, the 25 rounds are only what hit the school, more could have been (and probably were) fired.

My guess is the pilot was pointed in an unsafe direction with his guns 'hot' (probably a violation of the range safety order and a punishable offense right there) and squeezed the trigger in a pocket of bad air or during a maneuver and it's just bad luck that he nailed the school.

What does require investigating is whether or not the gun system malfunctioned and could happen again in other aircraft and if the pilot was negligent in following the range saftey rules (probably) and if not how the range saftey order should be changed to help make this sort of thing less likely, if not impossible, in the future.

Scaring people that the Air National Guard is targeting schools or grossly incompetent in general is probably not going to help anything.