Tag Archives: spooky gunship

Give it up to the AP…

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The Associated Press continues to put up archived footage from yesteryear online and some of it is striking. These recently caught my eye.

An 11-minute German training video from 1940 showing V1 and V2 rockets at Peenemunde.

A 20-minute 1976 report from Angola including some interesting footage of both CIA/South African-backed UNITA rebels and Cuban-backed MPLA in training– with lots of sweet FALs, HKG3s, and brand-new AKMs with bright orange Bakelite mags.

A 20-minute, sadly silent but in color, reel of AC-47D gunships out of Bien Thuy AB during the Vietnam War, October 1966.

A 16-minute, again silent but in color, reel of the Convair F-102 Delta Dagger being rolled out.

A captured 1944 German small arms instruction training film— in color– showing the basic use of everything from an MP40 to a Luger and MG 42.

A highly entertaining 16-minute color 1952 film on the failed Lockheed XFV-1, an early VTOL fighter envisioned for WWIII convoy defense that never quite got the bugs worked out.

And a 52-second newsreel of Billy Mitchell’s Martin MB-2s flying out of Langley Field in the 1920s to drop bombs on the captured German battlewagon SMS Ost Friesland, complete with foley sounds added in the 1970s.

Fly By Night Outfit: Spooky does it

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Official caption: “Air War In Vietnam, 1966: Crew of US AC-47 plane firing 7.62 mm GE miniguns during a night mission in Vietnam.”

The trio of General Electric GAU-2/M134 miniguns carried by the gunship was able to lay down a total of 6,000 rounds of 7.62 NATO per minute, or 100 per second.

The night attack of a U.S. Air Force Douglas AC-47D Spooky gunship over Saigon in 1968. This time-lapse photo shows the tracer round trajectories. National Museum of the U.S. Air Force photo 120517-F-DW547-001

Going well beyond the “whole nine yards”

AC-47 Spooky by Stu Shepherd

With less than 40 AC-47s of all types used by the USAF’s 3rd and 4th Air Commando Squadrons between 1964-69, few remained in U.S. inventory as most flyable examples were passed on to Southeast Asian allies (i.e. Cambodia, Laos, RVN, Thailand) after the much more capable AC-130 gunship entered service.

However, there is one that I happen to visit every time I head to Destin, located at the USAF Armament Museum, although it is actually just a modded C-47K Goony Bird (S/N 44-76486).

The AC-47D depicted emulates SN 43-49010 which was one of the first 20 C-47Ds converted to its AC-47D configuration by Air International at Miami, FL. The original was assigned to the 4th Special Operations Squadron, 14th Special Operations Wing, flying out of Udorn RTAFB, Thailand during the Vietnam War from 1969-1970.

A look at Spooky

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In the developmental process of the modern USAF airborne gunship, the AC-47D was very special.

She mounted a trio of MXU-470A modules portside each with a 7.62x51mm GAU-2B A (M134) Minigun.

The affect was, well, spooky.

Here is one Spooky mock-up on display at the Air Force Armament Museum outside of Eglin Air Force base in Crestview, Florida that took photos of awhile back. However, it should be pointed out that the airframe in question was never an actual AC-47, but rather a visually modified regular unarmed C-47– but you get the point.