Spooky flight

Air Classics, Aug 2001 by O'Leary, Michael

EARLIER THIS YEAR, A UNIQUE PHOTO FLIGHT TOOK PLACE

TO RECORD A NEWLY RESTORED

AC-470 SPOOKY GUNSHIP IN FORMATION WITH A CURRENT USAF AC-1300 SUPER SPOOKY

My first association with a Douglas AC-47 Spooky gunship came about in a rather unusuaL way. It was near the fall of Saigon and I was on a DC-8 freighter turning short final to land at Tim Son Nhut. The plane was carrying a heavy load of ammunition and other supplies for the South Vietnamese. From the cockpit, we could see rows of drably camouflaged warplanes filling every inch of ramp space. Around the field, North Vietnamese mortar fire was kicking up spouts of brownish earth, mud, and flame. After landing, the DC-8 taxied to a sand bank revelment and we rapidly exited down the stairs and headed for the safety of a bunker. Arriving and departing aircraft were being fired upon with some enthusiasm by the invading enemy but the hundreds of closely parked aircraft filled with explosive fuel were not receiving the attention of the guns. Why? It was obvious that they would soon become the property of the invaders who did not want to destroy the gift Of a fully-equipped air force. The warplanes represented virtually everything the Americans had flown before they bailed out, leaving the majority of the planes with the South Vietnamese. A few AC-471) gunships were parked near the DC-8, their left sides bristling with mini(,uns. While the DC-8 was receiving fuel, I zipped out with my camera to take a few shots of the Spookies only to be accosted by South Vietnamese soldiers waving M-16s and screaming "no photos!" Well, the incongruity of soldiers worried about photos while an invading army worked its way to the perimeter of not lost and I beat a retreat back to the relative safety of the DC-8 for a rapid departure.

INVENTING A GUNSHIP

As American involvement in Vietnam escalated, it became obvious that the enemy liked operating at night. Accordingly, it became imperative to deploy an aircraft that could effectively operate at night and attack enemy forces. Jets were too fast and did not have a long loiter time. A temporary fix was the utilization of the Douglas Invader - an effective tool but not exactly right for the night mission. What was needed was an aircraft that could stay up for a long time, carrying a heavy weight of guns and ammunition, and fly slw enough for the night interdiction mission. Not surprisingly, after al thorough search the USAF decided that the ideal platform was the Douglas C-47 - the venerable ( )()ney Bird!

It must ke remembered that at this time, 1963, there were still a lot of C-47s in American military use as well as many more in storage at Davis-Monthan AFB in the desert of Arizona. USAF officials rized that a relatively slow aircraft executing a pylon-style turn and fitted with side-firing weapons could bring a great deal of firepower down from virtually overhead an enemy target.

The task of developing an efficient gunship was assigned to Captain Ron Terry who, at the end of 1964, started modifying a C-47 to accommodate a trio of General Electric SUU-- 11A/A minigun pods in the aircraft's cargo hold. This was not as simple as it sounds since some form of gunsight had to be added for the pilot while extremely rugged mounts and ammunition feeds had to be put in place for the weapons. It was decided to slightly modify a standard Navy Skyraider gunsight for the pilot whole the mounts were built in field. Each pod could, theoretically, fire 6000 rounds per minute and, according to the Air Force, the modified C-47 could put one round per foot in an area the size of a football field. Obviously, this was ideal for decimating hostile Vietnamese ground troops. A prototype was sent to Smith Vietnam and found to he so effective that it was in demand virtually every night. The sight of the C-47 firing of night led a reporter to tag the craft with the name of "Puff The Magic Dragon" and the aircraft was initially given the designation FCC-47 to denote a form of fighter capability-- certainly a new task for the venerable Gooney Bird!

Minigun pods were in such demand that General Electric could not keep up with production and four additional Gooney gunships were equipped with between eight and ten M2 .30-caliber air-cooled Browning machine guns and assigned to the 4th Air Commando Squadron at Nha Trang but as General Electric production increased, these aircraft were later modified to accommodate the three assigned to combat in Southeast Asia and twelve were lost in action before the USAF withdrew from South Vietnam. The aircraft was credited with nearly 5000 missions while the USAF claimed a totally unrealistic 75,000 casualties from AC-47D sorties. If this was true, then the USAF's also totally unrealistic claims for B-52 raids would have completely decimated the enemy within a matter of weeks.

When the American military rapidly abandoned South Vietnam, an unknown number of AC-47Ds were left with the South Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians. If readers have exact information on the disposition of these aircraft, we would certainly appreciate hearing from them.