[CPTAUSRET]

I will relate this to flying in combat.

All your senses are on full full alert. You are aware of every sight, sound, vibration, fluctuation in any guage, movement on the ground, movement in the air (a midair would ruin your day), weapon flashes, tracers, engine RPM, engine temp, and pressure, transmission temp, and pressure, beeping in the earphones meaning you are being tracked on someone's radar, looking for smoke trails ie RPG's, all of these become second nature.

All the while you are lowlevelling (NOE) reading an out of date map, listening to three different radios FM, UHF, VHF, (seemingly with constant chatter on each one) and monitoring Guard channel for any SOS calls. Your purpose is to provide CAS for Americans in Distress, once in the AO you must establish physical contact with the good guys, asking for smoke, you perceive 4 purple smokes, your guy only popped one, you stay in contact with him having him vector you closer to his position, if it is during the hours of darkness you are provided with a further set of problems. Since you haven't established the good guys location you are at the mercy of any bad guy who siezes the opportunity to light you up, you dare not return fire for fear of hitting friendlies. Once you have the good guys fixed, and depending on their position, you deal death and destruction to the badguys, I have on more than one occasion hovered my Cobra directly over the good guys, and lit up the "Little F*ckers". At this point the guys below you are usually screaming that they are taking incoming, when in fact it is hot brass raining down on their helmets and going down their collars.

I wrote more than I had planned, but it is a glimpse into the day of an old time gunpilot.

Terry