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Fabs (and others), just to explain how gunships do their deeds...
Once you find a target (using all the onboard self-contained wizardry or from a known target) the plane orbits at a constant airspeed, altitude and bank angle, with the target at the center of the circle. That minimizes the "lead" problem and allows you to keep a whole lot of steel on target because you aren't simply flying past.
The pilot, who has the trigger on his control yoke, aligns the computer-generated image of the target with the crosshair in his side-looking sight. When it all lines up, he squeezes.
The computer does all the ballistics calculations for the gun and ammo selected, but the crew and pilot need a LOT of coordinated skill to get the firing solution correct. As Billy said, it's pitch black night (the pilot never actually sees the target, just a blip in a black hole), there's turbulence, wind, unknown terrain...and oh yeah...bullets coming back up at you. Sometimes BIG bullets.
That scanner's job? The guy lays down on the open ramp at the rear, held in by one strap (no parachute - if it accidentally opened, the scanner would be torn in half) and airsurfing on the slipstream. Only the rushing air holds him up, because the edge of the ramp is somewhere below his bellybutton.
Oh, did he mention he's bouncing back there in the pitch black, nothing holding him up but air, and he's pointed backwards? As in 175 mph air UP your nose?
And his job is to see when the big anti-air cannons open up - or a SAM gets launched - and to call out evasive directions to the pilot. Except that since he's going backwards, left is right and it's so dark he never really knows where "down" is? Fun job.
I did it once, for about ten minutes and only over the Gulf of Mexico - but I'll salute the guys like Billy who did it for real. And mean it.
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