RWright
Guru
- Location
- North Carolina
I grew up about 20 miles or so north of Pope AFB. Low flying C 130s were an everyday thing. They never really bothered me. I kind of enjoyed seeing them. They had the really fast fighter jets there too but they didn't fly as low or as often in my area. They would take off and land from the more rural southeast side of the base to keep the noise level down in the more populated areas. Back in the 70s and 80s my friends and I would go to the road right at the end of the runway and park and watch the planes take off and land. I enjoyed it and would probably do it now but today you can't even get on the base without military ID.
You used to be able to go about anywhere on the neighboring Ft. Bragg military base, and what we called "the reservation", the remote parts of it, away from all the buildings and equipment storage areas. I got to see some very cool stuff going out there over the years. A friend of mine got stopped for speeding....by a helicopter
. I have been driving down the road that went thru there and jeeps with 50 caliber machine guns mounted on them (with soldiers in firing position) would come flying out of the woods and go down the road beside me. That will slow you right down to yield the right of way very quickly.
I was driving home from dinner one night accompanied by a girlfriend and we saw some powerful lights out in the woods and pulled off the road to see what was up. Several minutes later a C 130 come flying out using some really small dirt road in the woods to take off, that was pretty impressive. It was about 30 feet in the air and only about 100 feet away when it got to where we had parked in the woods. When we were leaving we noticed the three camouflage Humvees parked about thirty feet away from us. I told her I was glad she didn't try and get frisky with me while we waited for the plane, that it could have been embarrassing. I was pretty sure they probably had night vision equipment.
I could go on and on about the cool stuff that went on there, like the night I was bowling at the base bowling ally and a C5 galaxy landed and I thought the world might be coming to an end or riding my dirt bike off road out there and the Apache helicopters thing, the rare B52 sighting, the A-10 Warthogs flying just above tree top level, the paratrooper drops, all great fun. I read recently the C130s are being moved to another base. I will miss them in a way. I do still get some of the low flying C-17s once in a while and lots of helicopters.
You used to be able to go about anywhere on the neighboring Ft. Bragg military base, and what we called "the reservation", the remote parts of it, away from all the buildings and equipment storage areas. I got to see some very cool stuff going out there over the years. A friend of mine got stopped for speeding....by a helicopter
. I have been driving down the road that went thru there and jeeps with 50 caliber machine guns mounted on them (with soldiers in firing position) would come flying out of the woods and go down the road beside me. That will slow you right down to yield the right of way very quickly.I was driving home from dinner one night accompanied by a girlfriend and we saw some powerful lights out in the woods and pulled off the road to see what was up. Several minutes later a C 130 come flying out using some really small dirt road in the woods to take off, that was pretty impressive. It was about 30 feet in the air and only about 100 feet away when it got to where we had parked in the woods. When we were leaving we noticed the three camouflage Humvees parked about thirty feet away from us. I told her I was glad she didn't try and get frisky with me while we waited for the plane, that it could have been embarrassing. I was pretty sure they probably had night vision equipment.
I could go on and on about the cool stuff that went on there, like the night I was bowling at the base bowling ally and a C5 galaxy landed and I thought the world might be coming to an end or riding my dirt bike off road out there and the Apache helicopters thing, the rare B52 sighting, the A-10 Warthogs flying just above tree top level, the paratrooper drops, all great fun. I read recently the C130s are being moved to another base. I will miss them in a way. I do still get some of the low flying C-17s once in a while and lots of helicopters.
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