The rocket Pods, certainly in the training missions are not on Pylons as the Pods "break through" the Leading edge flaps.

http://www.users.on.net/~ttail/podsbleed2.jpg

sure it can be disturbing to fly Hey Ivank, I bet you miss "a real plane"

IMHO Rockets are a waste of a pylon so I never use them.

I tried using Rockets in a training mission, and my pilot just kept repeating: "Rockets, Rockets, Rockets, Rockets....." All the way until I landed. He went Rocket Crazy on me.

I agree with Fuz. I shot off quite a few LAU-3 pods full of rockets in Vietnam and found them to be not very effective. They were originally designed to kill tanks (fire a whole pod, hit one tank, maybe). You had to press the frag envelope to be reasonably sure of a hit on a single vehicle, and a lot of guys came back with more rock holes in their aircraft than hits on the enemy. Almost any weapon you could carry was more effective than a pod of rockets, even 40 years ago.

Bear, what service and what aircraft did you fly in Vietnam and when were you there? I find the Vietnam War incredibly fascinating. Does "Bear" hold meaning to what crew position you held?

^^ Bump to what Fuz and Beartrax say, i would not want to fly a 2 hour mission over heavily defended enemy territory with a useless weapon either.

No rocket pods for me

Otoh, i heard the russians used them with good success against buildings and infantry in Czechenia (sp?), but that was with slow helicopters like the Mi-24.

Link: http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/encyclopedia/M/Mi/Mil_Mi-24.htm

Bandit,
I was an F-100 pilot flying out of Bien Hoa in 1965. We flew our aircraft over from Cannon AFB, NM on TDY status. Flew 150 missions in five months, then left the aircraft there and came home. We started with 24 aircraft and 22 pilots. Lost 5 aircraft and 2 pilots. All in South Vietnam.

This was during a period where CAS aircraft were in short supply and we got a lot of desperately needed CAS missions in support of Special Forces units. I couldn't call the south "Heavily defended". We were more at risk from the conditions we flew under than from ground fire. We made our own rules and did anything necessary to support the troops. Most of our pilots had over 1000 hrs in the F-100 and all the FACs we worked with were old fighter pilots.

Went back in 1967 for 7 months and flew 158 more missions. This time, most of the pilots had less than 500 hours in the bird (many had only a few hundred hours of total fighter time) and almost none of the FACs had fighter experience. Things had settled down a lot and stateside rules were in effect. Very few missions were worth risking an aircraft and pilot for. This second tour was really depressing and boring.

Is anyone not an ex-fighter/bomber pilot in this forum? We are amongst esteemed company indeed.

BC

Welcome aboard BearTrax! We sure are glad to have ya'...looking forward to reading more interesting insights from you.

Regards..
BeachAV8R

Aralez, buildings don't move very often

I guess rockets would be ok from a Helo,at least you 're not moving at 400kts trying to get a pipper on a moving target

Well, i'm not sure, last night i tried to bomb a powerstation in F4:AF and i'm absolutely sure it moved out of the way Why would i have missed if that wasn't the case ?

Hi BeachAV8R. Have enjoyed your reviews and other writings on this and other forums. I post a little, but usually just lurk.