Backtalk: Funding the future

[unhappycamper]

Funding the future
By Robert F. Dorr

The U.S. news media reported fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan on March 3, but said nothing about the Horn of Africa, where AC-130 gunships of Air Force Special Operations Command have been quietly helping in a small-scale, unorthodox war against extremists.

That night, an AC-130 flew in slow pylon turns over the town of Dhoble and unleashed bursts of cannon fire. Sheik Mukhtar Robow, a spokesman for the Islamist movement that is leading an insurgency against the Somali government, confirmed the attack, according to press reports.

The AC-130 gunship community is doing important work for America in this little-publicized conflict, but Special Operations Command’s airmen go about their duties quietly. The command asked me not to name the airfield from which AC-130s in the region operate.

They’ll talk up a storm, though, when you get them going, about the stress, age, fatigue and corrosion of their AC-130s and the need to recapitalize their force.

Command boss Gen. Michael W. Wooley and his staff keep many secrets, but they’re quite forthcoming about what’s happening with the command’s AC-130H Spectre and AC-130U Spooky gunships. “We’re flying the wings off these things,” command spokesman Matt Durham said. He wasn’t speaking poetically: Many of the gunships need new wing boxes. The installation process can take an AC-130, considered a “high-value asset,” out of action for six months.


Rest of article at: http://www.airforcetimes.com/community/opinion/airforce_backtalk_gunships_042808/