Rich wrote:Not good for making yourself inconspicious, the panels with the V on its side I believe is the reflective panel mentioned in my time we had no such thing, it seems there are more than just 1 each side.
Yes Rich, those are the IR-reflective panels, their location and number changes depending on what vehicle they're mounted on. The issue though is that they're not conspicuous unless you're looking at them in IR, which the A-10 pilots weren't. At 200+ knots, they're just a blur, so you can't tell what they show without help of a targeting system to zoom in and stabilize the image. The A-10s, unless utilizing guided munitions, rely on binoculars and the Mark-1 Eyeball, which makes identification of these kinds of ID markers difficult, which is again, why I wonder why smoke wasn't used by the USMC Air Controller who was calling in fire since that is the only reliable way of identifying where Blue is and where Red is. This used to be standard operating procedure and use of White Phosphorus marker rockets was SOP for the Airborne FACs to mark the target area for both the ground troops and pilots to have a single reference point that is easily conspicuous to all parties.
The painted panels were proven to be ineffective during the first Desert Storm, so I wonder why they went back to them again now since they didn't work in the past anyway.
Did any of you here in the UK watch the ITN news this evening?? It seems the chap responsible for this incident has been tracked down and a reporter was speaking to one of his neighbours. The neighbour, not a young man by any means.. more in his twilight years said.. 'Yes.. he (the pilot) IS a hero and we need more hero's like him to fight terrorism and us here in the UK and Europe should stop sucking our thumbs like we did in WWII :shock: :shock:
Seems the friendly neighbour forgot that Churchill went cap-in-hand to the US for help on more than one occassion and was repeatedly turned down.. the main protagonist being Jack Kennedy!!! Were it not for the fact the Japannese gave them an invite they couldn't refuse, they were more than happy to sit there sucking their collective thumbs while vast parts of Europe were under occupation and the UK was having the life bombed out of it. Cheeky old git!!! Once more.. America saves the world! :think:
