This afternoon, shortly before 1pm, I glanced at ADSBExchange.com and noticed a C-130 was headed in my direction from the northeast:
C-130s are the workhorse for military’s around the world. It has several variants, some of them rather unique. This particular C-130 piqued my interest because it had no callsign. I also noticed it was only at 10k feet which would be good for photos. When I looked up the registration to see if it was worth a photo op I found 16-5846 was one of those unique C-130s – an AC-130J Ghostrider! I dashed outside to capture this video:
For those not familiar with an AC-130, it has two guns sticking out the side of the fuselage. The one in front of the wing is a 30mm automatic cannon and the one behind the wing is a 105mm howitzer. These guns can rain down their firepower at a rate of 200 rounds per minute and 10 rounds per minute respectively.
So why was this AC-130 flying over my backyard? Well AC-130s do practice live fire on the nearby ranges at Fort Moore from time to time. However, today was not one of those pratice days. I found the flight originated at the Shepherd Field ANGB (aka Eastern West Virginia Regional Airport) in Martinsburg WV, home of the 167th Airlift Wing. When I searched FlightAware for previous flights I found it had flown some sorties over the weekend (missed clue number one):
When I saw the circle I immediately recognized it as an AC-130 firing orbit. But only for 55 minutes around noontime (missed clue number two)? They usually circle for hours. And what was up with all those wonky altitude changes (missed clue number three)? This warranted a look at the replay function of ADSBExchange:
My thought process upon seeing the above went something like this:
Yep, it’s flying a firing orbit around a target.
What’s that other plane flying around? Oh, it’s a DHC-6. I wonder if this is some kind of special ops demo? (missed clue number four – if I had only paused to look at the callsign I would have had an immediate answer).
Oh look, now it has a target…a C-5…and a C-17.
What was that, a show-of-force pass? (missed clue number five).
Wait a minute, why are the C-5 and C-17 circling the field now? Prepping for air drop ops?
What is going on?
Then the light bulb finally lit and a quick google search confirmed it – an airshow! Specifically West Virginia’s Greatest Airshow 2023.
I photographed airshow for 20 years and boy did I miss the clues. Flying on a weekend – when do airshows take place? A 55 minute flight around noon, that’s the time airshows usually start. The DHC-6 callsign was GKA264, as in Golden Knight Air, the US Army Golden Knights jump ship. The wonky altitude and show-of-force were banana passes and high speed passes down the show line.
Here’s a video from the airshow taken by Rails & Aviation Videography. The AC-130 departs at 00:55, the “wonky altitude and show-of-force passes” start at 5:18, and the landing is at 7:22.
So what was this AC-130 doing flying over my backyard? Nothing more than returning home to Hurlburt Field after a weekend of airshow demos and static display.