The world’s largest flight cannon: Ghostrider
The world’s largest flight cannon flies overhead is carried on U.S. Air Force aircraft, and its capabilities are deadly.
When the U.S. Air Force’s AC-130J flies over South Korea’s towering apartment blocks, it does so with the the world’s largest flight cannon, but, in addition, with their powerful cameras they can almost see inside the windows of the highest floors.
Aiming farther, weapons officers on the quad-engine, nicknamed Ghostrider, the world’s largest aerial gun, can distinguish objects at 50,000 feet, nearly 10 miles (16 km) away, all potential targets for the largest gun ever mounted on a fixed-wing aircraft.
This aircraft is at Air Force Special Operations Command in early June after it flew from its base at Hurlburt Field, Florida, for joint exercises in South Korea.
In a live-fire exercise, the 105-millimeter howitzer fired 43-pound (about 19-kilogram) shells at a range east of Seoul with such powerful force that it pushed the tail of the 80-ton aircraft two meters to the right.
Undoubtedly, it is the world’s largest flight cannon, it is terror in the air, and its presence can intimidate any enemy it confronts.
The world’s largest flight cannon
About eight seconds after firing, the shells hit the range, located at an altitude of 3,000 meters, sending smoke billowing skyward as the gun controllers watched the results of their work on large video screens located in the center of the aircraft.
“Two tanks destroyed,” confirmed a raspy voice in the AC-130 crew’s radio headsets.
AC-130 gunners Joe Gipson (back) and Isaac Dowell guard the world’s largest aerial gun aboard a U.S. Air Force AC-130J during a live-fire exercise over South Korea.
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Pilot Capt. John Ikenberry said the presence of the AC-130 with the world’s largest aerial gun is used for the drills in South Korea was designed to send a simple message to its belligerent neighbor North Korea and its leader, Kim Jong Un.
North Korea has been sending garbage-filled balloons to areas in and around Seoul and testing missiles, and South Korean troops have fired warning shots when North Korean soldiers crossed the military demarcation line in the middle of the demilitarized zone.
Just this week, North Korea criticized the live-fire exercises conducted in the South in late June and early July as an “inexcusable and explicit provocation.”
Meanwhile, Washington maintains a steady flow of weaponry bound for South Korea for ground, air and sea maneuvers ahead of one of its biggest annual maneuvers, Ulchi Freedom Shield, which will begin later this summer.
Recall that the AC-130J, the newest version of the U.S. Air Force’s Hercules fighter aircraft, and are proving their worth in Korea for the second year in a row.
