By As the US Air Force AC-130J flies over South Korea’s towering apartment blocks, its powerful cameras can almost see inside windows on the highest floors. Aiming farther afield, the weapons officers on the four-engine aircraft, nicknamed Ghostrider, can pick out objects at 50,000 feet, almost 10 miles away—all potential targets for the biggest gun ever mounted on a fixed-wing plane.
CNN obtained an exclusive look inside the aircraft, assigned to Air Force Special Operations Command, in early June after it flew from its home base in Hurlburt Field, Florida, for joint drills in South Korea.
In a live-fire exercise, the 105-millimeter howitzer pumped out 43-pound shells into a firing range east of Seoul. The force of each blast was so powerful that it pushed the tail of the 80-ton plane six feet to the right.
About eight seconds after firing, the shells hit the range 10,000 feet below, sending smoke billowing skyward as the controllers of the big gun watched the results of their handiwork on large video screens in the middle of the aircraft.
“Assess two tanks destroyed,” a scratchy voice confirmed in the radio headsets of the AC-130 crew.
Pilot Capt. John Ikenberry said the AC-130J’s presence for drills in South Korea was designed to send a simple message to its belligerent neighbor North Korea and its leader Kim Jong Un.
“It shows we are ready,” Ikenberry said.
Tensions have been simmering on the peninsula in recent months. The North has been sending balloons filled with trash to areas in and near Seoul and testing missiles, and South Korean troops have fired warning shots as North Korean soldiers from the North have crossed the military demarcation line in the middle of the demilitarized zone.
Last week, North Korea criticized live-fire exercises in the South in late June and early July as an “inexcusable and explicit provocation.
