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With U.S. forces converging on Baghdad, Lt. Cmdr. John Enfield's job just got a lot harder.

The supersonic warplanes that had been bombing Iraqi forces on the outskirts of the city now are concentrating on central Baghdad. And Enfield an F/A-18 Hornet pilot said it's become more difficult to avoid hitting civilian targets.

Pilots also said the sky over Baghdad has become so congested with coalition planes that they worry more about in-flight collisions than Iraqi anti-aircraft fire.

"You have to keep your eyeballs out for the other guys," said Enfield, on the carrier USS Kitty Hawk in the Persian Gulf. "That ends up being one of your major time-consumers, just making sure you are safe from all the other airplanes."

Controllers are "stacking" aircraft at different altitudes to reduce the risk of collisions, but pilots say they still have to dodge each other.

"There's the same number of planes going up in a smaller and smaller airspace. It's getting hazardous from our own planes in the respect of running into each other," said Lt. Cmdr. Mark Johnson, another F/A-18 pilot.

Warplanes are pounding Baghdad with laser-guided bombs, targeting tanks, artillery and Republican Guard buildings. On Friday and Saturday, the pilots said, anti-aircraft and surface-to-air missile fire was the heaviest since the start of the war March 20.

Hitting a road or canal is comparatively easy, Enfield said, but "when you are in the city, it takes very precise control, a lot more time and a lot more effort to make sure you are only going to hit your target and nothing else."

Pilots are using smaller bombs mostly 500-pound laser-guided weapons meaning some targets must be hit more than once. Pilots said they are also required to get visual confirmation of their target before dropping bombs.

Enfield said the risk of hitting unintended targets stopped him from dropping bombs during two missions Friday.

Since the war began, flight operations aboard the Kitty Hawk have lasted about 15 hours a day. Most pilots have been flying one or two three-hour missions a day, and fatigue is beginning to set in. And an F-14 Tomcat fighter from the Kitty Hawk crashed Wednesday due to mechanical failure.

"A lot of the crews are really tired, the aircraft are getting kind of tired," said Johnson, of Redding, Calif. "I don't know what we can look forward to in the future, maybe a little bit of scaling back. It would be nice to get a little bit of extra sleep."

Pilot Lt. j.g. Greg Kausner returned from his mission south of Baghdad on Friday without having unloaded bombs from his F-14 Tomcat because he wasn't able to confirm his targets were not civilian vehicles.

"We want to inflict as little damage as possible on Baghdad and its infrastructure," said Kausner, 26, of Sparta, N.J.

A Republican Guard headquarters was among the targets hit by 65 bombs dropped by warplanes from the USS Kitty Hawk in missions Friday and Saturday, the Navy said.

The USS Constellation, another of the three U.S. carriers in the Persian Gulf, said its pilots hit more than 50 targets in bombing sorties in the 24 hours ending early Saturday.

photo credit and caption:

A plane handler watches the launch of an F/A-18 Hornet from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk in the Gulf, Saturday April 5, 2003. Planes from the ship continued missions in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom over Iraq. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

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