‘Puff the Magic Dragon’: the ‘creepy’ story of the AC-47 Gunship

Unleashing horrific firepower and raining death and destruction upon the communist forces in Vietnam from the dark skies above, the AC-47 fixed-wing gunship was the first of its kind.

Creating a monster

Giving cargo planes a new mission, the warplanes created during the Vietnam War provided ground support from the air to troops on the ground, protecting villages and outposts from being overwhelmed by massive Viet Cong attacks. The idea emerged from experiments in 1964 during the ‘Tailchaser’ project, led by US Air Force Captain John Simons, which involved a Convair C-131B cargo plane fitted with cameras to record target tracking while the aircraft was in a stable bend remained.

Budget constraints delayed implementation of the idea until Air Force Captain Ron Terry got involved. Terry took the C-131 and, together with Lieutenant Ralph Kimberlin, mounted a GAU-2A Gatling gun from the aircraft’s cargo door. The gun pointed to the left side of the C-131 and the pilot could hit targets with ease by flying in a steep circular pattern to the left (pylon turn), allowing the gun to be aimed and saturate a relatively small area. area.

Instead of the C-131B initially used, the more abundant C-47 was chosen for the first operational fixed-wing gunship by the US Air Force. The Douglas C-47 transport had been in service since the 1930s and was affectionately known by many names: “Skytrain”, “Dakota” and “Gooney Bird”. The aircraft served as a civilian aircraft and was known as the DC-3. Reliable, economical and capable of performing a variety of tasks, the Douglas design is one of the most important aircraft in history. Under the efforts of Captain Terry, who at times used his personal resources to advance the project, the first AC-47 version flew in Vietnam in December 1964.

Originally designated FC-47 (Fighter Cargo), complaints from fighter pilots prompted a redesignation of AC-47 (Attack Cargo). The gunship would eventually be armed with three six-barrel 7.62x51mm NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) miniguns, capable of firing up to 6,000 rounds per minute. Two guns were mounted projecting to the last two windows aft of the port wing, and one to the open cargo door on the same side. Later improvements resulted in the GAU-2A/M134 being replaced by the SUU-11BA installation of the weapons. A battery of three minigun pod installations could saturate an area the size of a football field in less than 10 seconds. The muzzle velocity of the 147 grain ball projectile was approximately 2800 feet per second and every fifth round was a tracer round.

The crew consisted of a pilot, a co-pilot, a navigator, a loadmaster, two armament system specialists and a South Vietnamese observer responsible for communications with the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) forces. The pilot aimed from the cockpit out the left window with an improvised surplus gun site and fired the weapons remotely from the control column, and the armament specialists removed the jams and reloaded the weapons. The loadmaster or armament specialists also had the task of deploying flares to illuminate the battlefield, as this was a weapon mainly used at night.

The twin-engine AC-47D was powered by two Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp radial piston engines each producing 1,200 horsepower, giving the gunship a top speed of approximately 290 mph (470 km/h). The range was over 3,000 kilometers, giving the aircraft plenty of time to loiter or remain airborne and on standby during combat.

A fire-breathing dragon

The sight and sound of an AC-47 firing as many as three miniguns at night at a rate of up to 6,000 rounds per minute, with every fifth round being a tracer, was impressive to say the least. Enemy forces were killed, wounded, or ran away in panic, ending the battle anyway. The aircraft fired from too high an altitude so that the tracers would burn out before reaching the ground, and that, combined with the limited range of the rounds, required the AC-47 to fly at low altitude. The gunship became known as “Puff the Magic Dragon” because of the intense nighttime light show it produced. The name is taken from a popular song of the same title by the musical trio Peter, Paul and Mary, much to their chagrin.

Call sign “Spooky”

The radio call sign for the AC-47 was ‘Spooky’. Because the plane flew over the battlefield for extended periods at night, whizzing past hanging illumination flares and belching rounds at an unprecedented pace, the name seemed appropriate and stuck. The first missions proved so successful that the Air Force soon took the old C-47s out of storage and converted them into AC-47 fighters. By late 1965, twenty AC-47s had arrived in Vietnam, forming the 4th Air Commando Squadron, followed by more aircraft and the 14th Air Commando Squadron in 1967. Training for the gunship took place at Forbes Air Force Base, Topeka, Kansas.

Some of the first uses of the gunships included attacking the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos, which was defended by anti-aircraft weapons and surrounded by steep mountains. The slow-moving and low-flying AC-47 did not fare well in that environment, nor did the 7.62 rounds which, while very effective on personnel, did not always damage trucks and vehicles enough to put them out of action. Four AC-47s were lost before the remaining aircraft were recalled to South Vietnam. The gunships found their place in defending outposts, villages, fire bases, etc. against night attacks by high concentrations of VC troops.

The AC-47’s night operations proved relatively safe, as the aircraft was vulnerable to ground fire. But the raiding VC who attacked the special forces outposts and villages rarely carried heavy machine guns or anti-aircraft weapons, preferring to travel light using hit-and-run tactics. This limited the aircraft’s losses.

Tally of terror

The last American AC-47 flights took place in December 1969. Between 4,000 and 6,000 outposts and hamlets had been defended and no position ever defended by the aircraft was ever overrun. In their first eleven days of operation in Vietnam, the AC-47s fired 179,710 7.62mm rounds. During a mission on February 8, 1965, an AC-47 loitered for over four hours during a VC offensive and fired 20,500 rounds into their position, ending the attack. There are countless stories from soldiers about the AC-47 and its firepower saving them in the face of overwhelming odds. A total of 41 AC-47s served in Vietnam, of which 19 were lost, 12 of which were in combat. A total of 53 C-47s were converted into AC-47s by the United States. The concept had proven itself and it was time to improve the concept.

Newer combat ships

Most of the AC-47s used by the Americans in Vietnam were replaced by newer model aircraft in 1969. The lessons learned during the Ho Chi Minh Trail led to the installation of heavier weapons in addition to the miniguns, to deal with vehicles and tougher targets. . The newer gunships would be based on the Fairchild C-119 (AC-119) and the Lockheed C-130 Hercules (AC-130). Many surviving AC-47s found their way into the RVNAF (Republic of Vietnam Air Force) inventory and were lost to North Vietnam when the war ended.

A ghost from the past

Because it was such a productive aircraft, fighter versions of the C-47 served with many countries, some of which were transferred from American inventories, while some countries converted the aircraft to their own versions. A more recent aircraft is the Basler BT-67, a reconditioned C-47 built by Basler Turbo Conversions of Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Colombia began deploying five armed BT-67s in 2006 and used them for counter-insurgency operations against armed groups. Although not a version of the AC-47, the aircraft is armed with .50 caliber GAU-19A machine guns and can carry bombs, and is even noted to have been spotted on one example with a 20mm cannon. The idea of ​​the fixed-wing combat ship lives on.