“You smell that? Do you smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for twelve hours. When it was all over I walked up. We didn’t find one of ‘em, not one stinkin’ dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like… victory. Someday this war’s gonna end..” ‘Apocalypse Now’
Cannon Air Force Base is asking for public comments on their Low Altitude Tactical Navigation (LATN) proposal. For those of you not up on military jargon, the proposal is to fly Lockheed Hercules C-130s and Boeing CV-22 Ospreys 200 feet above our tree at a speed of 250 nautical miles per hour. And just to make it challenging, all of this will happen in the dark, not occasionally or just when the mood moves you, but 688 times a year. What’s not to like about that?
All this reminds us of another of our all time favorite movies, Dr Strangelove. “If the pilot’s good, I mean if he’s reeeally sharp, he can barrel that thing in so low, oh it’s a sight to see. You wouldn’t expect it with a big ol’ plane like a ’52, but varrooom! The jet exhaust frying chickens in the barnyard!”
You might be asking yourself what napalm and barreling a C-130 at treetop have to do with the price of beans?
Absolutely nothing if no one makes a mistake and we know Uncle Sam and his proclivity for not making errors. But for the sake of argument, say that pilot is drinking a cup of coffee and his second officer tells him the joke about the priest, the rabbi and the hooker walking into a massage parlor. Just as he’s leveled that big four-engine momma two hundred feet above the ridge, hot coffee flies everywhere and boom! 7,530 gals of high octane jet fuel splatters all over the mountain side and more than chickens are frying.
Smells like victory. Someday, this war’s going to end. And for the sake of Lockheed and Boeing, we hope soon.
