Discover Top Posts Tagged with #ac 47

AC-47D GUNSHIP provides air support for a Firebase in South Vietnam.

@MAC_VSOG via X

#ac 47 #douglas aircraft #gunship #aircraft #usaf #aviation #vietnam war aircraft #special ops

Mini guns of the AC-47 Gooney Bird

@MAC_VSOG via X

#ac 47 #aircraft #vietnam war #usaf

Inside the fuselage of the AC-47 gunship

@MAC_VSOG via X

#ac 47 #gunship #usaf #aircraft #vietnam war

AC-47 “Spooky”

@ron_eisele via X

#ac 47 #usaf #aircraft #vietnam war #aviation

Modelling News from Warlord No. 405, dated 26 June 1982. A review of the The AC-47 Gunship "Spooky" (also known as Puff, The Magic Dragon) kit from ESCI.

Its ultimate replacement was the AC-130 gunship conversion from the C-130 Hercules which is still used by the USAF today. The Spooky name was also carried forward for one of the AC-130 variants but its probably better known as the Spectre or more recently the Ghostrider.

#ac 47 #spooky #modelling news #model kit #warlord #26jun #1982 #esci #douglas ac 47

Repetitivos com impacto em milhões de processos estão na pauta deste início de ano

(more…)

View On WordPress

#AC 47 #EAREsp 746775 #EREsp 1163020 #EREsp 1293606 #Rcl 31935 #REsp 1052854 #REsp 1149487 #REsp 1340553 #REsp 1492221 #REsp 1514118 #REsp 1614874 #REsp 1647075 #REsp 1656322 #REsp 1660168 #REsp 1675874 #REsp 1703155 #RHC 88592 #RHC 89182 #STJ

-A USAF AC-47D in September 1968, after the 4th Air Commando Squadron became the 4th Special Operations Squadron of the 14th Special Operations Wing. This photo was probably taken at Nha Trang, South Vietnam. | Photo: USAF

FLIGHTLINE: 120 - DOUGLAS AC-47 SPOOKY/PUFF

The USAF modified a number of WWII-era C-47 transports to provide fire support to troops in Vietnam, spawning a line culminating in today's AC-130J.

The term "gunship" originated in the 19th century, and referred to warships designed to shell targets on-shore. The term was later applied to the YB-40 and XB-41, modified B-17s and B-24s armed with numerous Browning machine guns designed to act as escorts for bomber formations. "Gunship" was also applied to variants of the B-25 armed with a 75mm cannon or 18 fifty cal machine guns, 14 of which were forward-firing.

CHASING THE DRAGON'S TAIL.

The gunship idea languished for a few decades, but in the early '60s the USAF opened Project TAILCHASER, under which a C-131B be modified to determine the feasibility of mounting weapons laterally in a transport-type airplane, which would then circle a target point, providing more firepower than could be achieved with a strafing run. The first phase of the program would see the C-131 fitted with cameras and other test equipment on the left side of the fuselage, followed by time to develop and practice piloting techniques. Phase two first involved replacing the cameras with General Electric SUU-11/A gunpods, firing 7.62mm blanks, to determine if the mounts and aircraft could withstand the recoil. After this, the blanks would be replaced by live ammo, and the aircraft would then fly a series of pylon turns at various altitudes, airspeeds and distances, firing at targets both on land and on water. On Eglin AFB's water range a one-second firing burst scored twenty-five hits on a minimum ten-foot-square raft and seventy-five hits on a maximum fifty-foot-square one. A similar test on the land range saw twenty-five manikins scattered in different positions over three-quarters of an acre. A three-second firing run on this area target hit nineteen manikins, ten of them considered "killed." The tests exceeded Air Force expectations, and a follow-up program to install miniguns in a C-47 soon followed, with similar results.

-A photo of the test mount fabricated for the TAILCHASER C-131 in 1963. | Photo: USAF

♫PUFF THE MAGIC DRAGON...♫

By 11 December 1964, a WW-II veteran C-47B mail courier (s/n: 43-48579) was modified at Bien Hua Air Base with the addition of three miniguns fixed to locally fabricated mounts. Four days later a second C-47 was similarly equipped and readied for combat testing. The two craft, redesignated FC-47, organized under the 4th Air Commando Squadron. and operating under the radio call sign "Puff" were protecting local villages and US personnel from VC attack. The type's first notable action occurred on 23 December, when one of the Puffs responded to a Special Forces request for air support, firing 4,500 rounds and breaking a Viet-Cong attack. A second attack some 20 miles away was also spoiled by the same FC-47. During the second half of December 1964, the FC-47s flew 16 combat sorties, all successful. The following February, a Puff responding to a VC attack orbited their hilltop position for four hours, raining down some twenty thousand five hundred rounds and killing an estimated 300 VC.

-Typical mounting of the M134 Miniguns on an FC-47. | Photo: USAF

SPOOPY BIG SHOTS

Recognizing the outstanding success of the gunship concept, the USAF ordered the second FC-47 returned to the US to train more crews, as well as establishing a squadron of similarly modified aircraft. By December 1965 a total of 26 C-47 had been converted and Training Detachment 8 of the 1st Air Commando Wing was established at Forbes AFB in Kansas. In Vietnam, the 4th ACS was expanded under Operation BIG SHOT to twenty aircraft, 16 operational and 4 spares. The aircraft, now designated AC-47 and operating under the call sign "Spooky", were redeployed to Tan Son Nhut Air Base, were now equipped with upgraded guns which could be selected to fire either 50rpm or 100rpm. The Spookies could carry up to 24,000 rounds of ammunition, along with forty-five flares for illumination of targets at night. Experienced pilots could put those rounds into every square yard of an area of approximately one and a third acres in under ten seconds.

-Time-lapse photo of an AC-47 attack on targets outside Saigon. Photo: USAF

In 1966, the 4th ACS moved north to to join the newly activated 14th Air Commando Wing at Nha Trang Air Base. By 1968, the 4th had been joined by the newly activated 3rd ACS, with both redesignated Special Operations Squadrons on 1 August. Elements of both squadrons were stationed around South Vietnam to provide quick reaction, and a flight from the 4th SOS was stationed at Udom RTAFB with the 432nd Tactical Recon Wing.

-Interior view of an AC-47, showing the somewhat ad-hoc mounting of the early SUU-11/A pods. | Photo: Fotios Rouch

-The later MXU-470A Minigun mounts were more substantial. | Photo: USAF

Of 53 aircraft converted to AC-47 standard, 41 saw service in the SEA theatre, with 19 being lost in total, 12 to combat. In June 1968, the 14th ACW received the Presidential Unit Citation. The AC-47's crews fought valiantly at the Battle of Khe Sanh, providing nightly fire support and launching uncountable numbers of flares to provide illumination.

-An AC-47 inside a revetment at an unknown air base. | Photo: USAF

-An AC-47 at Udon RTAFB in June 1970. After its USAF service ended, this aircraft had been passed through the Royal Loatian Air Force, the Cambodian Royal Khmer Air Force and the RTAF before being placed on display in Thailand.

OLD WARBIRDS NEVER DIE, THEY JUST FLY SOUTH...

Despite their many accomplishments, the USAF recognized that the AC-47s were slow and vulnerable, and so began developing a replacement. A number of C-130s were modified under Project GUNSHIP II, but the type was in short supply as Lockheed was concentrating on the transport version, so GUNSHIP III was opened to modify the more plentiful Fairchild C-119. With the arrival of the newer planes, the Spookies were transferred to the South Vietnamese Air Force, and the North Vietnamese captured a number of them in 1975.

In the mid-80s, the USAF supplied a pair of AC-47s to the El Salvador Air Force, and in 2006 Columbia acquired five Basler BT-67s (DC-3s lengthened, strengthened and re-engined with P&W Canada turboprops) armed with updated Miniguns slaved to a FLIR ball. Several other nations, including South Africa, Taiwan and Indonesia, have built their own version of the AC-47, using retired DC-3s or C-47s and various guns.