Asking Those Who Might Know 20080521_C-130 001a.jpg [1/3]

Looks like it might be an AC-130. Probably cannons sticking out the port
side and others may be sensors of some type.....


"Lush Rimshot" wrote in message
...
Please excuse the obvious doctoring these images underwent. This C-130
was circling east Houston for about 90 minutes this afternoon. Kind of an
unusual occurrence around here. I'm guessing she was at about 11,000
feet, and I had to play with the pixels to eke out some contrast &
details. Still shows up okay with 8 megapixels at 400mm & ASA 400, but
that's still a lot of damp sky to shoot through. Especially in May in
Houston, where the state bird is humidity.

Anyway, someone here might have some insight as to what those little
mini-domes, bumps and bulges might be on the underside, as well as those
knobs on either side of the aft fuselage, but especially that...'pole'...
sticking out from the aft left fuselage. The C-130 has more lives than my
neighbor's dozen cats, and since I have no idea what this version does, I
thought I'd ask the group for some better-informed opinion. I'm so out of
the loop on this one I'm wondering if the long pole could be anything from
an antenna to home in on illegal micropower radio stations to one of those
'burp' guns at 60 rounds a second. Or thereabouts.

We often have some F-16C's from the 147th Texas ANG (I think) out of
Ellington Field patrolling the the port and Refinery Row, but this a
different sort of bird, doing a different sort of thing. I'm just
curious.

Thanks, KB