Which aircraft requires the guns to be in the fixed-forward firing position when boresighting?

• A. CV-22
• B. F-35
• C. HH-60
• D. AH-64

Answer: (C)

Boresighting is about aligning the weapon’s bore axis with the aircraft’s forward reference so that where the sight points, the round actually goes. For some gun mounts, the line of fire changes with the gun’s position on the aircraft. To get an accurate alignment, the gun must be in the exact pose it will be in when firing.

In the HH-60, the door-mounted guns operate from the side of the helicopter and aren’t fixed in a forward-arcing, stabilised turret like some other systems. When you perform boresighting on this aircraft, you need the guns locked in the fixed-forward firing position so the bore axis used for alignment matches the aircraft’s forward axis during actual use. If the guns were left in a swung or non-forward position, the boresight would reflect a different line of fire than what you’ll get in combat, leading to misalignment.

Other aircraft listed use gun arrangements where either the gun is fixed forward by design or the weapon sighting system accounts for the mount’s movement (such as internal guns or turreted systems), so boresighting doesn’t require the gun to be locked in a fixed-forward pose.