Just a guess...but maybe to protect the gun?

Great question...I’m not a tanker but do you think it might be to protect the business end?

Thanks! Will do.

Thanks, Tyler, for covering her loss. Haven’t seen anyone else make the effort.

Such waste...reminds me of this quote:

Something I had been thinking of when I was a kid and read the bullet comparison.

And only 19 years after the end of WW2 and 61 years after the Wright brother’s first flight.

Thanks...I’m learning!

Yeah...I never thought it through...I should have realized that the two at mach 3 are simply not the same.

Thanks to you and Total Crush for the education...I have fired rounds - 9mm, .45, .223 and 7.62 but was very one dimensional in my consideration of their trajectory, only caring about the end result.

Ahhh...very cool.

And the Space Shuttle over Jacksonville on its way to the Cape.

This always amazed me since I can’t see a .223 round once it is fired...thus, if an SR-71 made a pass over an airfield at mach 3, I wouldn’t see it....

Their claim and PR-packaged image is a mockery of the Air Police/Security Police just as you describe.

I have a relative who is a team member...he/they are anything but elite.

Ohhh the Sturgeons....I love that class boat. I’m envious of your time.

Everyone of the LSOs are tremendous pilots and great human beings. The guys you hear in these videos are most likely second tour senior LTs or LCDRs who have a great number of hours in the aircraft and have really thought the whole process through as you can particularly hear in the A-6 landing.

My skipper did an amazing flyaway after a nose gear collapse on his S-3 Viking and returned for a barricade landing (minus his right seater who ejected).

In memory of the 7 crew of Ranger 12, an EA-3 from VQ-2 who, through a long, tragic chain of events took the barricade too high and crashed into a cold Mediterranean Sea on 25 January, 1987.

After having replied to my original post, I hope you spent a moment reading my responses to others who felt the same way you did...if not, then I invite you to do so.