Woman shoots at airplane

wsuffa said:
...I don't recall what the Mythbusters determined...
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Plausible. One story was a guy was hit while he standing under a car port with a fiberglas roof. They talked to the doctor and saw the X-ray of the bullet in his head.
 
steingar said:
Tell that to the dead guy(s) in Puerto Rico.
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I didn't say that they were right...

...I know I am not volunteering to be the shooting in the head test dummy for that experiment!
 
dmccormack said:
I dunno. We had some pretty nice scopes and calibers in tanks and scout vehicles but our antiaircraft drill was "put as much lead about where the airplane will be as possoble -- you might hit it..."

The bullet drop at angles much more than 10 degree up elevation is pretty steep.
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Yeah, I'm not talking about an angry woman firing at airplanes over her house, I was talking about the scenario where the shooters were hunters with significant experience. And I agree that even then it's not a slam dunk, but even if it were only one in ten chance I'd rather not be on the receiving end.
 
gismo said:
Yeah, I'm not talking about an angry woman firing at airplanes over her house, I was talking about the scenario where the shooters were hunters with significant experience. And I agree that even then it's not a slam dunk, but even if it were only one in ten chance I'd rather not be on the receiving end.
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Gothya.

Though the shooting prowess of the average hunter is far surpassed by the gear he totes.

A couple of years ago I ran into a local that told me about a guy he hunted with that was "up on the hill here and went through a box of .30-30 shells but didn't hit anything...har, har, har..."

Twenty rounds!!!

:sosp:
 
dmccormack said:
Though the shooting prowess of the average hunter is far surpassed by the gear he totes.
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I went to a gun range with a buddy that had just bought a big caliber short barrel hand gun.

We set up at about 5 yards, he aims, fires...

Him (excited): "I can't see a hole in the paper, I must have hit the bullseye!!!"

Me: "No, you were about three feet high and to the right I saw the puff of dirt where it hit.":yes:
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
I went to a gun range with a buddy that had just bought a big caliber short barrel hand gun.

We set up at about 5 yards, he aims, fires...

Him (excited): "I can't see a hole in the paper, I must have hit the bullseye!!!"

Me: "No, you were about three feet high and to the right I saw the puff of dirt where it hit.":yes:
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Yikes.

When I switched from the Air Force to the Army before attending OCS I was assigned for a month to a Maintenance Company (holding pen).

I was there for weapons qual weekend -- everyone spends all day out on the range qualifying with assigned firearm.

The E-7 wrench that was with me in the popup target range handed me his card and said, "I always fire expert..." (I was an E-6 at the time).

I said, "Then this will be good to see!"

He turned, looked at me intently, and said slowly, as if I didn't speak English, "I always fire expert..."

When the line was cleared and firing commenced, I watched the sorriest display of shooting prowess ever -- targets next to his went down, dirt clods sprang up dozens of yards in front of other targets, and every other shot was a jam: "These #### M-16s!" (when in fact his handling was so poor the rifle fairly leapt from his grasp each shot).

When the Cease fire order was given, he asked me how he did.

"Terrible. You hit one target -- maybe."

"Mark me down for expert."

"No."

"What?"

"You can't shoot, you're not an expert, and I'm not lying for you."

He was one angry mechanic, and sulked the rest of the time I was in that unit. But he also spent the rest of the afternoon in re-training, where they at least worked on some of his many bad habits.
 

.60 cal black powder pistol. Might not hit what you're aiming at, but it'll hurt whatever it DOES hit.
 
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gismo said:
I'd think it wouldn't be all that hard to hit a plane flying between 500 and 1500 AGL with a scoped rifle. Seems to me the airplane would make a reasonably large and stable target if it was just flying in circles. A little knowledge about the likely speed of the plane coupled with the ability to judge the proper lead and it doesn't sound too difficult.
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I suppose you are right but I always imagined these people as being a little loaded and PO'd at the airplane noise scaring the game away. OK, so it's a stereotype but then again, I have heard stories about hunting parties with the emphasis on "party" from the participants.
gismo said:
Maybe the plane had been used for drug running and was shot while flying at a very low level from someone up higher on a ridge? Your theory of the round coming back down from a high trajectory sounds plausible assuming the jet was on or near the ground at the time though.
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This airplane had an interesting early life but I don't think it included being a drug runner.
 
Everskyward said:
I suppose you are right but I always imagined these people as being a little loaded and PO'd at the airplane noise scaring the game away. OK, so it's a stereotype but then again, I have heard stories about hunting parties with the emphasis on "party" from the participants.
....
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It might not be fair, but it's well earned. Where I grew up, hunters coming out of the city (I called, and still call, them urban cowboys) would leave the whole area trashed, and it would be routine for a few of them to fall out of their tree stands each year and break their necks, with the flask of Beam/Daniels/SoCo being an obligatory find on the body. That's in addition to spotlighting deer (while drunk) and leaving the decapitated carcass in the ditch along the front field (with obligatory Budweiser cans - hey, it's red, white, and blue). I could go on, but I think the points been made.

Reflective of all hunters? No. Reflective of enough for it to be a legitimate concern? Unfortunately, yes.

And then there were the good old local boys who'd get all likkered up and ride their mules at midnight in the woods across the way, chasing rabbits and coons with shotguns. That's just fun. :)
 
Newspaper said:
KRCG News reached out to Judy Davis for her side of the story. Phone calls were not returned. Davis did not answer the door at her home.
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Spike quoted this same part of the story, but with a different take on it. When i read that part of the story, I could just hear it:

EDITOR: Hey, Sparky, you know that Davis lady over by the airport? She's getting all worked up over people bothering her privacy so she's started shooting at 'em and stuff. Just gone totally bonkers, looney ****. Why don't you grab a camera crew and bang on her door and see if you can get her side of the story.

SPARKY, thinking 'is he out of his ever-lovin' mind?!': Sure boss, no problem.

(later)

SPARKY, back from a two hour outing at the driving range and buying the camera crew a round at the 17th hole: Sorry, boss, but she wouldn't answer. We tried.
 
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