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The American Flight Museum brought its AC-47 out onto the ramp for the Gathering of Warbirds and Legends this weekend. Ed Van Morlan talked to us at length about the aircraft and its mission.
Ed broke out the gunsight and showed us where it’s installed for combat missions. It’s used by the pilot to aim the two GE rotary miniguns on the left side, just aft of the wing.
Here are the guns. This is a pretty typical installation, which is to say inadequate for the power of the guns. I’m told that it was not uncommon for the guns to come loose from their moorings in the floor of the aircraft. The AC-47 was the proof of concept that eventually led to the AC-130 and more purpose-built weapons systems.
Here are those guns, just aft of the left wing root. It seems to me that the aircrew had a huge incentive to make sure that the guns were aimed reasonably well. The stream of fire comes pretty darned close to the left aileron and/or wingtip.
About Steve Tupper
Really interesting interview on an amazing machine that I came to know and truly appreciate as a young infantry platoon leader. Perhaps I misunderstood Mr. Van Morlan’s comments about RPGs but I can assure listeners to the podcast that RPGs were very much a part of the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong arsenal.
I’m pretty sure the aircrews flying Spooky were aware of their presence too.
Cheers,
Larry