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A very true event here in the mid-late 70-s I deer hunted with friends and family lots all at cousin's ranch in Jacksboro Tx, we had lots of Huey chopper flights over us as so close to Ft Walters, there was a main road over the ranch and the highest part of the county was on the property, very few living in the area, one day after a morning hunt coming in to eat we were over flew by F4's from?? very low then FMA burners when leaving all the smoke, we had it happen to us before, then later going back out a flight of UH! Hueys even waving at us, well the next am uneventful but on the way in to eat again the white rock road was covered in 7:62x51 brass and links! in the place we always stopped to look down fire lanes for deer, only happened that 1 time but sure made up watchful from then on, I found an old picture made me think of that today. We never heard a word on it,,,,,,,,just sharing

The F4's could have been out of Sheppard AFB, which trained a lot of pilots for USAF, NATO, Iran (under the Shah), and South Vietnam. They used to do some interesting low level flying in North Texas with all sorts of aircraft, including F4's and B52's. The rules were different then ...

M60's scatter brass and links, especially from an airborne platform. If I found many close together, I'd think it was from a ground position.

The F-4s could've been from anywhere. In the 70s, the mantra was "speed is life and the lower the better", to avoid the then anti-air defenses. So, we practiced flying low level navigation very fast, but only on approved pre-published routes. Originally called VFR trainging routes, in the 80s the FAA formalized them into VRs and IRs. There is a VR118 very near Mineral Wells, which is most likely from a legacy VFR route.

These routes had to be in remote areas, not to interfere with other air traffic or populated areas, and had to avoid turkey farms, wildlife areas, parks, etc. So, if you had a remote ranch, it would be likely that you could be on a VR route.

To avoid complacency and flying the same routes over and over, we would go on weekend cross-countries flights and fly different routes all over the country. Naturally we chose destinations at cities we wanted to visit on the weekends.

Was all that 7.62 brass reloadable? That would be my first thought.

I once got overflown by an inverted F4 when I was on the Mt Whitney summit....back in the early 1980s. A flight of 2 or 3 of them came screaming down the Kerr River valley from the north, and then headed easterly up the western flank of the peak. They flew pretty close to the top of the peak, and then dove down the east face into the valley below and went tearing off into the distance. The aircraft were low enough (relative to us) that I could clearly see small details like the rivets. One of the pilots inverted his aircraft just before arcing over the peak, and I very clearly remember him grinning and waving to us as he flashed by. It was awesome. Scary, but awesome .... for most of us ....

There was a couple of climbers, a married couple, who were doing a free climb ascent of the east buttress of the peak. For those who don’t know, the peak is 14,595 ft high, and the eastern face of the summit is a 2300 foot vertical wall (I came up by a different route). That couple summitted the peak not too long after the jets had passed - maybe a half hour or so. The husband told me that they were clinging to the cliff face near the top when those jets went over, and it scared the bejabbers out of both of them right at a critical moment. He was not a happy camper about the overflight, but I was giddy as a school girl about it.

I’m sure the pilot violated every rule in the book, but he obviously didn’t care. No idea if he got in hot water for it or not. He was the last one over the peak, so maybe the other pilots never saw it. I know I sure did. It was awesome.

The only place I’ve ever seen brass and links on the ground was in the 1960s, in the desert outside of Barstow, California. I was on a paleontology trip, but apparently the area we were on had been used as an aerial gunnery range of some kind at some point in the past. We found a crashed aerial target full of holes nearby too. It kind of resembled a giant paper airplane, but made out of a lightweight foil-coated honeycomb material. I don’t remember in great detail what size it was, but I recall it being maybe 10-12 ft long, or something like that. Evidently, these things used to be towed behind another aircraft, and then someone would light them up during gun runs. I have no idea if these were relics from WW2/Korea, or if this kind of technique as in use during the Vietnam war, which was still raging at that time. Out of curiosity, I just now went and googled “towed aerial targets” for images, and I found exactly what it was:




I found a description of it, which said that they were used for ground troops to shoot at aerial targets. The one we found had been shot up pretty badly, and there was a lot of spent brass and links on the ground not too far away. But it was kind of scattered around, rather than all in one spot. So I just assumed for decades until just now that it was aerial gunnery, not antiaircraft gunnery.

More info on those targets here: http://www.ordtech-industries.com/2prod ... TDU10.html

threoh8 wrote: ↑Fri Jan 04, 2019 9:35 am The F4's could have been out of Sheppard AFB, which trained a lot of pilots for USAF, NATO, Iran (under the Shah), and South Vietnam. They used to do some interesting low level flying in North Texas with all sorts of aircraft, including F4's and B52's. The rules were different then ...

M60's scatter brass and links, especially from an airborne platform. If I found many close together, I'd think it was from a ground position.

I was in training at Sheppard in 74 and 75, but not on aircraft. If I recall correctly, most training there was done in T-38s, the training version of the F-5. As a 19 year old, my biggest concern was that the Iranians had nicer uniforms than we did.

As for the shells that were found, is it possible loose shells fell from the floor of a helicopter long after the guns were fired over a firing range. I have no knowledge of helicopters so I'm showing my ignorance. I'm pretty sure the guns wouldn't have been fired anywhere but the range.

My most memorable flyover happened south of Midlothian, TX. I was riding on a county road when I heard a loud aircraft through my helmet over the sound of the Harley. It was like nothing I had ever heard so I stopped to look. The aircraft turned out to be a V-22 Osprey. It was my first sighting and really amazing to watch.

NAS Dallas had both a Navy and Marine F-4 squadron and Carswell had an ANG F-4 squadron. The low level routes were all marked and we would file the route on our flight plan. After take-off, we would sometimes get "dislocated" and go where we wanted to go. You would never shoot unless you were on a range. The falling brass would kill someone if it hit them.

howdy wrote: ↑Fri Jan 04, 2019 1:41 pm

The Annoyed Man wrote: ↑Fri Jan 04, 2019 11:37 am Was all that 7.62 brass reloadable? That would be my first thought.

"I once got overflown by an inverted F4 when I was on the Mt Whitney summit....back in the early 1980s."

That was a normal procedure. We were practicing trying to use terrain to hide from radar and we would roll inverted over the top of a hill/mountain to keep positive G's on the airplane. A pushover would be negative G's and very uncomfortable. The back seater would be whining like crazy if we did that. It was also lots of fun and being 25 and bullet proof, what could go wrong??

Better yet! I’d hate like hell to think that guy could have gotten in trouble after putting on such a good show!

(EDITED TO CORRECT A PROBLEM WITH THE QUOTE TAGS)

howdy wrote: ↑Fri Jan 04, 2019 1:36 pm NAS Dallas had both a Navy and Marine F-4 squadron and Carswell had an ANG F-4 squadron. The low level routes were all marked and we would file the route on our flight plan. After take-off, we would sometimes get "dislocated" and go where we wanted to go. You would never shoot unless you were on a range. The falling brass would kill someone if it hit them.

Back in the mid '70s, all low level flying tactics for airplanes and helicopters transitioned to NOE (Nap of the Earth). The main reason was the Soviet ZSU-23-4. A radar guided 4 barrel 23mm cannon, that could lock on 4 targets simultaneously and in engage all 4 in something like 9 seconds. It was designed to protect Soviet armor from air attack. In attack helicopters, we transitioned from diving fire of the RVN days, to scooting NOE a few feet off the terrain, to a holding position masked by terrain then popping up in a direction called in by the scout helicopter and firing a missile in that direction to intercept the beam on target by the scout. Getting to holding positions was lots of fun, but waiting there and firing was ho-hum compared to diving fire in RVN.

Many years ago my wife and I were on the motorcycle somewhere south of Joe Pool lake on the country back roads. For a number of miles a Bell OH-58 Kiowa played peak-a-boo with us from behind hedge rows. Likely a training exercise for him. He didn't smoke us and he didn't crash. All ended well. :-)

Slightly off topic, but back in the late 60s I lived on the south side of Ft.Worth. one night after I had gone to bed, but before, I fell asleep, I heard the sound often portrayed on TV of a bomb dropping, a high pitched whistling sound. There was no accompanying explosion, and I didn't give it much more though.
The next day my friends and I we're playing around by a creek, near a railroad tracks, and found a " bomb" partially buried in the ground.
Being kids, we dug it out, put it in one of our wagons, and took it back to our street. One of the parents, panicked, made us move away from it, and called the police. The police came out and I assume, called the folks at Carswell AFB.
They sent out three trucks, and took our prize away. It was a "practice bomb", and was not explosive, that had been accidentally released upon approach, but it sure caused a lot of excitement for some kids.

Back in the late 80s or early 90s my family and I were heading out west pulling our tent camper. We were headed to Balmorhea. We were on I-10 out past Ozona. I looked to my left and a B-1 bomber was hugging the ground and dropping into the valley from the top of a mesa. I could tell it was going to fly right over us. The family was dozing so I yelled to wake them up. Sure enough the plane buzzed right over us at about 200 feet wagging his wings. We watched as he climbed and went over the mesa to the north. Makes a person proud.