This is a poorly-written article by someone who has no business writing articles about aviation. Looking at pictures of Vliehors range on the internet shows it to be a large air-to-ground target training complex, complete with strafe pits. More likely than not the incident happened during a strafing run and a ricochet off the ground impacted the aircraft after it flew low directly over the target. Low and directly over the target is not where you want to be immediately after a strafing run.

Back in the 90's Cecil Field lost a Hornet at the Pinecastle Range in Florida due to multiple ricochet impacts while strafing. But you get that when you ignore the safety brief and refuse to jink hard off target. He should have gotten a new callsign of "DASH" (Dumb Ass Shot Himself).

I got my my visual lesson in richochets and I didn't even shoot anything from the air.

I was flying along the edge of Ft. Hood one night and was pondering the altitude limits of the restricted area there. For those non-aviation folks, Restricted Areas are special use airspace areas that are generally governmental in nature, usually military, and can be shut off to civilian traffic when things are going on. They have altitude limits as well as horizontal.

I was at probably 7-8000 feet and looked over and saw tanks doing night fire exercises. I was able to see some of the shells tearing along horizontally and impacting the targets. Then I saw a glowing shell, go horizontal, hit the target, ricochet straight up to above my altitude.

My mental thought was, "Ooooh....riiiight. Got it."

quote:

Originally posted by Otto Pilot:
I was at probably 7-8000 feet and looked over and saw tanks doing night fire exercises. I was able to see some of the shells tearing along horizontally and impacting the targets. Then I saw a glowing shell, go horizontal, hit the target, ricochet straight up to above my altitude.

My mental thought was, "Ooooh....riiiight. Got it."

Yeah, that will ruin the rest of your short life...

quote:

Originally posted by RHINOWSO:

quote:

Originally posted by Otto Pilot:
I was at probably 7-8000 feet and looked over and saw tanks doing night fire exercises. I was able to see some of the shells tearing along horizontally and impacting the targets. Then I saw a glowing shell, go horizontal, hit the target, ricochet straight up to above my altitude.

My mental thought was, "Ooooh....riiiight. Got it."

Yeah, that will ruin the rest of your short life...

I learned the same lesson on machine gun ranges at night, tracer ricochets everywhere.

Did he get to paint a silhouette of his old airplane on his new airplane, as a symbol of a confirmed kill?

Yes indeed. The 104 was the first Air Force fighter to have the M 61 20mm cannon and was struck by its own cannon fire during testing of the gun at supersonic speeds

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
years ago, they had this problem with the F104 Starfighter

how do you ever get over the stigma of shooting yourself down...

does that count as a 'kill' for your record?

quote:

Originally posted by Strambo:

quote:

Originally posted by RHINOWSO:

quote:

Originally posted by Otto Pilot:
I was at probably 7-8000 feet and looked over and saw tanks doing night fire exercises. I was able to see some of the shells tearing along horizontally and impacting the targets. Then I saw a glowing shell, go horizontal, hit the target, ricochet straight up to above my altitude.

My mental thought was, "Ooooh....riiiight. Got it."

Yeah, that will ruin the rest of your short life...

I learned the same lesson on machine gun ranges at night, tracer ricochets everywhere.

Same thing happens at sea.
Tracers everywhere.....

The ultimate in friendly fire.