tcmaint@tekigm2.MEN.TEK.COM (Thomas A. Dowe) (01/18/90)
I had the dubious honor of observing the test. So, here I was, airborne, over some approximation of the Laotian-Viet- namese border; not too far from Cambodia. The cameras were running and the equipement in perfect working order. The cannons glistened oilily, their multifluted presence somehow stiller than still as they rested in their gymballed mounts. The engines of the plane whispered with an electronic sound of the turbines seeming the loudest next to the passage of air through the opened bay doors. We started to circle and the high pitched sound of the fans took on another note. I was thankfull for the webbing which bound me to a ceiling ring, as my body hung, feet pointed out the bay into space. Ghostly green images blended with SLAR presented the target as if they had lit bonfires to advertise their presence. The barrels of the 20mm came to speed. For the record, the Colonel described by shouting what was happening in the sequence of events. The cameras peeked out into the night with blinded eyes. The target was chosen and the 20mm moved with the same weird motion displayed by the simulcrums of demigodlike warriors seen in movies like Sinbad the Sailor. Fire! Even before the sound registers, the cannon is whistling down with a moan so sad and terrible, but the Shriek! My God! That shriek, as if some awful banshee spirit had been mystically born into mechanical existence and was trying to tear the bonds of reality; to become real and not just some spinning tubes of venomous death. The ground below erupted on screen as it did at the target, now much more visibly revealed to human and cameras' view. No screams or shrieks of mere humans matched man's mechan- ical best. They were lost as well to cameras' view as the 20's were braked to silence. My observer status, already an ironic view of hell's flick- ering light, was becoming a rollercoaster ride of vast meaning and proportion, as, with my feet still pointing at the happless targets below, the 40mm's started their awe- some whistling moan. If there were a devil of any mystical sort, the sound of that unearthly, hideously ethereal, roaring moan would evoke envy and possibly fear. The blue, white, yellow and continuous tongue of shrieking death plunges to the earth, and within a sec., explodes and eats at the ground like firey acid. The tubes change their hellish note to an infinitely sad, descending whistle as secondary explos- ions light the jungle night below. The plane lurches back to position in reaction to the newtonian force of the guns. Again, no moans, whistles or shrieks can be heard from the mortals below. A silent tongue, one single strand, of tracer, itself unheard, falls off as the previously silent engines of the testbed are started and my feet come smoothly back to the floor. There is another test target, some distance from here. Tad tomd@pulsar.telcom.tek.com