Hello all, here is today's article posted on TheArmoryLife.com. It is titled “Douglas AC-47 Spooky — The Magic Dragon Gunship” and can be found at https://www.thearmorylife.com/douglas-ac-47-spooky/.
Douglas AC-47 Spooky — The Magic Dragon Gunship
- Thread starter Mike H.
- Start date
Snake45
Professional
Spooky was just hella cool!
In the old Squadron/Signal book on gunships, there's a way cool pic of a USAF FAC who rigged up an M60 to shoot out the left window of his O-1E Bird Dog. Are Americans the greatest people, or what?
Here's a nice film depiction of a Spooky attack not unlike the one described in Dr. Dabbs' story.
"Where do you want it?"
"Put it on the camp! Those people have it, not us!"
"It'll only take a minute."
In the old Squadron/Signal book on gunships, there's a way cool pic of a USAF FAC who rigged up an M60 to shoot out the left window of his O-1E Bird Dog. Are Americans the greatest people, or what?
Here's a nice film depiction of a Spooky attack not unlike the one described in Dr. Dabbs' story.
"Where do you want it?"
"Put it on the camp! Those people have it, not us!"
"It'll only take a minute."
rcurtner
Professional
In 1972 I was a gunner on AC-130E gunships. Unfortunately I was injured while going to Land survival school at Fairchild AFB. I completed all the training and was certified as a gunner. The crew I trained with was deployed to Thailand, flew a few combat missions before having to turn over their planes to the Vietnamese Air Force. After over a year of training they had to teach Vietnamese pilots how to operate them. What a waste. This airplane was bad ass, two M-61 20mm guns, Bofors 40mm & 105mm howitzer. While in training we learned quite a bit about how the AC-47 came to be.Hello all, here is today's article posted on TheArmoryLife.com. It is titled “Douglas AC-47 Spooky — The Magic Dragon Gunship” and can be found at https://www.thearmorylife.com/douglas-ac-47-spooky/.
Cedric
Custom
We did some work with the survival school at Fairchild and used some of their training areas. It was tough. At the time IIRC winter escape and evasion was done about 60 miles south ov the British Columia border. Pretty harsh.
rcurtner
Professional
Yes it was. Here I was in sub-zero temps training to go Back to South East Asia. Being pursued by staff on snowmobiles trying to avoid capture was a real treat. I fell down the side of a snow covered mountain and my left knee was severely injured. After all of my training I wasn't going to be able to stay in the program.
Cedric
Custom
Decades later I was working at an AFB under contract. Obviously, this wasn't Ranger school, but air crews who had passed the course swore if they ever had to do it again they would turn in their wings.
rcurtner
Professional
Coming from the Army I had no idea the Air Force had such training. I was impressed.
Snake45
Professional
My Son went through it in, I think, 2014 as part of his flight training. By that time he was already a Staff Sergeant and had been deployed to "the Sandbox" twice. He told me he had more ribbons than most of his instructors there.
rcurtner
Professional
You have every reason to be very proud of your son.My Son went through it in, I think, 2014 as part of his flight training. By that time he was already a Staff Sergeant and had been deployed to "the Sandbox" twice. He told me he had more ribbons than most of his instructors there.
Snake45
Professional
red_pepper
Alpha
Thanks for the great article! An AC-47 has been at Oshkosh Air Venture each of the past few years. I feel something of a connection to the AC-47, as a good friend of our family's was killed in 1967 flying a Spooky (my father was also an AF pilot, flying C-130's in Vietnam a year later).
When my cousin returned from Vietnam he shared several stories with my brother an I about the AC-47 Spooky he was "assigned to" from 1967-1969. He stated that that gun ship could make one pass the size of a football field and put a bullet on every square foot. Devastating any living thing. Just saying.
God rest his soul
God rest his soul
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When I was in the sandbox. I got to witness a lot of really cool stuff- the effect of the ma deuce on the human body, a pair of Apaches turning an insurgent mortar team into mush, an F-A-18 dropping a JDAM on a small house and I got to fire my weapon and the .50 cal a few times. But the biggest regret I have is never getting to see the A/C-130 Spectre in action. I know the military used it a lot in Afghanistan, but we never got to experience it while we were there.
My uncle was a founding member of the 1st Air Commando Squadron. He was killed along with his co-pilot in the A Shay Valley in May 1966 and has a building at Wright Patterson named after him. Informative short read. For accuracy though the first gunships nomenclature were identified as FC not AC, FC-47s and FC-119s followed by the AC-130s Spectres.Hello all, here is today's article posted on TheArmoryLife.com. It is titled “Douglas AC-47 Spooky — The Magic Dragon Gunship” and can be found at https://www.thearmorylife.com/douglas-ac-47-spooky/.
Snake45
Professional
You are correct about the FC-47 thing; I was gonna bring that up. I didn't know that hung on as long as the AC-119s, though. Apparently the Fighter Jocks took great umbrage at Trash Haulers calling their airplanes "fighters."
What did your Uncle fly? Sounds like he knew Bernie Fisher, who earned his MOH in the A Shau Valley in spring of 1966 IIRC. When I saw his A-1E in the USAF museum in 2008, I just stood there and wept a little for a while. (Same with Robin Olds' F-4). I understand they recently repainted Fisher's airplane to a much more accurate paint job, but I don't think I've seen it yet.
Another article could be written about the crews. My father did two AC-47tours (early 1964/5 and 1968) but his regular Air Force job was being in Strategic Air Command flying B-47s. His first flying assignment was flying C-46 Commandos in Korea 1953 and his piston engine time marked him for time in the 47. He loved the unit because as scheduling officer he never had a problem filling out the daily flying assignment as most of the crew was "old heads" from other weapons systems ready to take on any mission. One of his favorite war stories was having a very senior NCO as load master one night kicking out empty flare crates through the back cargo door and as he turned back inside, he took an AK-47 round in the butt. The rest of the crew heard him utter a pained grunt and queried him on his status. He responded very pointedly to shut up and leave him alone. The wounded loadmaster flew the rest of the mission and it wasn't till they returned to base that the crew realized what happen. The senior NCO was very embarrassed getting a purple heart after being shot in the behind.
KaniksuKidd
Alpha
I had a friend who was a Navy Corpsman assigned to a USMC formation. One day they went through a bowl-shaped valley and climbed the far end and called for Spooky. Air support arrived at dusk and opened up on the jungle below. My friend related that the firing continued for several hours. The next morning the troops were ordered to conduct a body count. Nothing in the valley was taller than 6” and there were no intact bodies to count. He stated he had never been so impressed by a weapon in his life.
Snake45
Professional
Kidd, your post reminded me so much of this classic movie scene, it wasn't even funny.
dry gulched
Alpha
Before the Spooky and before the A10 the B25G medium bomber was an excellent gunned up gunship. Stories go that it would stall out when all guns were fired and it was capable of cutting Japanese destroyers in two. Nose mounted and cheek mounted .50s and some had a .40 caliber cannon mounted. I'd hate to be on the receiving end of that.
Snake45
Professional
B-25Gs and Hs with the 75mm cannons were badass.
Here are the strangest B-25Gs I've ever seen. These have had the cannon noses replaced with the late-war B-25J 8-gun "strafer nose" factory conversion packages. Not unusual to see Js with these noses (some were built at the factory, others were converted with factory packages) and also not unusual to see converted Hs with them (only way to tell if an airplane with this nose was built as an H or a J is to run the serial number) but to see this nose on a G is VERY odd. And yet here they are. Also unusual to see a G model stripped to natural metal--they were all delivered in OD/NG camo.