Range Tour

On October 1st, the kids and I were lucky enough to get to ride down to the Gila Bend range to watch Steve and other members of his squadron drop practice bombs and strafe targets with the F16s guns. It was a long day with both kids and no help but it was worth it to see and take pictures of Steve doing what he does in the F16. Each jet did 6 bomb drops; 2 from 14,000 feet, 2 from 3,000 feet, and 2 from 1,ooo feet. The bombs were not armed so they were silent and when they hit the ground, just a puff of sand and dust came up. No giant fireball or anything too spectacular (or scary for the kids). But when each pilot came down to 75 feet for the straffing runs, it was like nothing I've ever heard before. Loud and violent does not even begin to describe it. The targets they were shooting at were probably about 100 yards from where we were standing. Brian was fine when the first flight of jets came through with the guns, he had his ear plugs in, held his ears, and even sort of laughed about it. The second flight of jets was a different story--after the first jet came through, he was screaming bloody murder and shaking. We ended up in the little building next to the tower for the duration of the second flight's runs, where his shaking subsided slightly, but the screaming continued. Emily acted like nothing was even happening. I just held my hands tightly over her ears (earplugs don't fit in 5-month-old ears) or hugged her against me and she was all wiggles and giggles. When it came time for Steve's flight we headed up into the tower and a friend held Emily so Brian and I could watch and take pictures of Daddy killing the pretend bad guys. He did okay on Steve's strafe run because being inside the tower helped with the jet noise and gun sounds and maybe he felt better because it was "Mr. Ship" (our squadron commander/his babysitter's daddy) and his own Daddy.

One of Steve's bombs--see the puff of smoke/dust?

They had this thing up in the tower that showed how far the bomb hit from the target (5 meters) and the height from which is was dropped (400 feet). This was Steve's closest drop to the target. On one of Steve's higher runs I asked the tower operator if 11 meters is good and he said, "When you are dropping a bomb from 15,000 feet, anything less than 50 meters is excellent."

They drop the bomb and then immediately turn right to get out of the way of the explosion (if it was an armed bomb) or sand puff (practice bomb)

Steve's second gun run

His bullets hitting the target and sand around the target

His 3-ship doing a fly-by at the end and then heading back to base. They get back to base from the range in less than 10 minutes. It took us 2 hours by bus.