An AC-47’s miniguns, each firing at a rate of 6,000 rounds per minute, unleash on Viet Cong positions. The gunships also carried flares that were manually dropped to illuminate the area. A three-second burst from its miniguns provided suppressing fire over an elliptical area approximately 52 yards in diameter, with a round placed every 2.4 yards. The C-47 gunship could fly for hours in a counterclockwise orbit over a target area. All three guns were triggered by a button on the pilot’s control yoke and could be fired individually or simultaneously. The first fully modified C-47s were equipped with three 7.62mm General Electric miniguns-one in the cargo door and two mounted in the left-side rear windows. Upon landing he made the gunship program a top-priority development project for the 1st Combat Applications Group. He had no problem hitting the target and reportedly had a ball in the process. Flying at 120 knots at the airplane’s 3,000-foot pivotal altitude, and using grease pencil crosshairs on the left-side window pane as a gunsight, he tried shooting at the raft. Pritchard then piloted the C-47 out over the Gulf of Mexico and circled one of the raft targets maintained by Eglin’s Armament Development Division. 50-caliber M2 machine gun mounted on the floor by the left-side cargo door, pointing out parallel to the wing. He had a Douglas C-47 transport modified with a. The idea was presented to the commander of the Special Air Warfare Center, Brig.
0-48579-the original “Puff the Magic Dragon”-carried three 7.62mm GE miniguns in makeshift mounts. (Pivotal altitude is based on ground speed and allows the target to remain fixed in place along a line parallel to the lateral axis of the aircraft.) Douglas FC-47D tail no. He suggested evaluating side-firing guns mounted in an aircraft that could circle its target at a constant airspeed at its pivotal altitude, putting continuous fire on the target as long as desired. The gunship idea originated with an informal suggestion by a staff officer in the 1st Combat Applications Group, sister organization to the 1st Air Commando Wing based at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. Special Forces in Vietnam were in dire need of night firepower in their fight against localized attacks by Communist insurgents on the fortified hamlets and military outposts in the Mekong Delta. The gunship program began in 1964 when U.S. To accomplish these missions the gunship’s weaponry and electronic sophistication have evolved exponentially over the years. This includes not only close support of troops under fire and defending air bases, but also escorting convoys, specialized urban operations and interdiction missions conducted against preplanned targets. Air Force’s AC-130 gunship has played an integral role in close air support, air interdiction and force protection provided to U.S.
Since its debut during the Vietnam War, the U.S. Evolution of the Air Force's AC-130 Gunship Close
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