US Navy Pinecastle Bombing Range Complex: Difference between revisions
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The pilots that train here now are practicing for targets in the Middle East. Cargo containers simulate the residential targets that they might have to bomb. "F/A-18 Hornet jet fighters and other aircraft take off from Naval Air Station Jacksonville or from aircraft carriers off the Florida coast, fly low over the forest, and drop their bombs in the middle 450 acres of the range," according to an announcement in the [http://www.ocalapost.com/u-s-navy-bombing-in-ocala-florida/ Ocala Post]. Collectively, they drop 20,000 bombs on this range every year—most of them filled with clay, concrete, or iron, but several hundred of them still live. Pilots are scored on how well they hit their targets. | The pilots that train here now are practicing for targets in the Middle East. Cargo containers simulate the residential targets that they might have to bomb. "F/A-18 Hornet jet fighters and other aircraft take off from Naval Air Station Jacksonville or from aircraft carriers off the Florida coast, fly low over the forest, and drop their bombs in the middle 450 acres of the range," according to an announcement in the [http://www.ocalapost.com/u-s-navy-bombing-in-ocala-florida/ Ocala Post]. Collectively, they drop 20,000 bombs on this range every year—most of them filled with clay, concrete, or iron, but several hundred of them still live. Pilots are scored on how well they hit their targets. | ||
F/A-18 Hornet jet fighters and other aircraft take off from Naval Air Station Jacksonville or from aircraft carriers off the Florida coast, fly low over the forest, and drop their bombs in the middle 450 acres of the range. All air-to-ground exercises using conventional ordnance up to and including 500 pound MK 82 bombs and five-inch Zuni rockets are authorized. | |||
Napalm and High Explosive Incendiary (HEI) are prohibited. Live ordnance is restricted to the Live Ordnance Impact Area; inert ordnance is used on all other targets. | |||
Pinecastle targets have also been certified for laser operations. The Navy has used the area for target practice for 50 years under a special use permit from the U.S. Forest Service. | |||
Video of A-10 Warthogs at the Pinecastle bombing range doing strafe run and dropping MK82 AIR bombs courtesy of Live Leak: https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=df6_1358865340 | Video of A-10 Warthogs at the Pinecastle bombing range doing strafe run and dropping MK82 AIR bombs courtesy of Live Leak: https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=df6_1358865340 | ||
Revision as of 12:22, 1 May 2017
Purpose
Did you hear a loud "boom!" You may have heard bombs being dropped during training at the Pinecastle training range. The Pinecastle Bombing Range Complex located in the Ocala National Forest near Astor, FL. The Pinecastle Impact (Bombing) Range is an fenced 5,760-acre area, with the eastern edge of the range located about 2 miles west of State Road 19 and the Camp Ocala campgrounds, and one-half mile west of the Farles Lake campground. F-18 jet fighters and other aircraft take off from Jacksonville Naval Air Station, fly low over the Forest, and drop their bombs in the middle 450 acres of the range. Pinecastle is under the operation of Naval Air Station Jacksonville in Jacksonville, FL. The range is the only place on the East Coast where the Navy can do live impact training. The Navy drops nearly 20,000 bombs a year at the site, a few hundred of which are live.
The pilots that train here now are practicing for targets in the Middle East. Cargo containers simulate the residential targets that they might have to bomb. "F/A-18 Hornet jet fighters and other aircraft take off from Naval Air Station Jacksonville or from aircraft carriers off the Florida coast, fly low over the forest, and drop their bombs in the middle 450 acres of the range," according to an announcement in the Ocala Post. Collectively, they drop 20,000 bombs on this range every year—most of them filled with clay, concrete, or iron, but several hundred of them still live. Pilots are scored on how well they hit their targets.
F/A-18 Hornet jet fighters and other aircraft take off from Naval Air Station Jacksonville or from aircraft carriers off the Florida coast, fly low over the forest, and drop their bombs in the middle 450 acres of the range. All air-to-ground exercises using conventional ordnance up to and including 500 pound MK 82 bombs and five-inch Zuni rockets are authorized.
Napalm and High Explosive Incendiary (HEI) are prohibited. Live ordnance is restricted to the Live Ordnance Impact Area; inert ordnance is used on all other targets.
Pinecastle targets have also been certified for laser operations. The Navy has used the area for target practice for 50 years under a special use permit from the U.S. Forest Service.
Video of A-10 Warthogs at the Pinecastle bombing range doing strafe run and dropping MK82 AIR bombs courtesy of Live Leak: https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=df6_1358865340
Location
The Navy’s Pinecastle Range is located in the Ocala National Forest near Astor, Florida in southeast Marion County. Just over a military owned location referred to as Camp Ocala inside the junctions of Florida SR 40 and Florida SR 19 just west of Alexander Springs at the border of Volusia and Lake counties.
The Google map link is https://www.google.com/maps/place/Pinecastle+Bombing+Range,+Altoona,+FL+32702/@29.130636,-81.718836,92038m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x88e7b25f7dc24eff:0x72fbf6c1ccb2276!8m2!3d29.1097084!4d-81.7185253?hl=en
Schedules
Visit https://www.cnic.navy.mil/regions/cnrse/installations/nas_jacksonville.html and look under "Schedule. Navy training schedules indicate that live and inert bombing will take place at the Pinecastle Range Complex located in the Ocala National Forest the following day and time:"
History
Take from a GAO report "Navy's Bombing Practices at the Pinecastle Electronic Warfare Range in the Ocala National Forest, Florida document B-178547: Published: Aug 30, 1973. Publicly Released: Aug 30, 1973." That document is online at http://www.gao.gov/products/B-178547 and also Gizmodo article http://gizmodo.com/why-20-000-bombs-a-year-are-dropped-in-this-national-fo-1593856388.
How did a bombing range get created in the middle of a national forest? In short: World War II. In the run up to the war, the War Department negotiated a temporary use permit for over 40,000 acres of land from the USDA, which administers our national forests. In the middle of the 430,000-acre forest, far away from people, an entire bombing and gunnery range took shape. A fake Japanese city and factory were even built as target practice.
After the war, the military relinquished most of that land back to the USDA, but not all of it. If you look at Ocala National Forest from above, you can still see a crop circle-like scar in the forest. This is the Pinecastle Impact Range, and it sits on the 5,000 acres or so of the national forest that are still used by the Navy.