Dedicated to all who maintained, flew, and supported ac119g shadow and ac119k stinger gunships during the vietnam war. Ac119 gunship association preserving history of all who flew. There have been a number of books written about gunship operations, but never specifically on the ac119 series. What it was really like to fly combat helicopters in vietnam kindle edition by garrison, mark. Then major charlie spicka was scheduled for a routine aca spectre gunship interdiction mission over the trails in laos on march 27, 69. Declassified contemporary historical examination of current operations checo reports. And that is a short story of how and when the ac119 was born.
He wrote three autobiographical books about his life and military experience. After alex westaway and dan haighs other musical act, fightstar, went on hiatus in 2010, westaway and haigh decided to focus on other musical ventures, including forming gunship. The douglas ac47 spooky also nicknamed puff, the magic dragon was the first in a series of fixed wing gunships developed by the united states air force during the vietnam war. The book also includes a section dedicated to those killed in action and some of who have since passed. The fairchild ac119g shadow and ac119k stinger were twinengine piston powered. Contemporary historical evaluation of combat operations. These gunships were configured to circle the target instead of performing strafing runs. It carries a wide array of ground attack weapons that are integrated with sophisticated sensors, navigation, and firecontrol systems. The first flying boxcar was designated the xc82b, and looked like a c119. A gunship is a military aircraft armed with heavy guns, primarily intended for attacking ground targets in modern usage the term gunship refers to fixedwing aircraft having laterallymounted heavy armaments i.
On that mission, a 37 mm round hit their gunship in the right horizontal stabilizer. Flying boxcar, from the book fairchild aircraft 19261987 by kent a. Download it once and read it on your kindle device, pc, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading guts n gunships. Ac 119s and gunship historical information ac119 gunship. The lockheed ac gunship is a heavily armed, longendurance, groundattack variant of the c hercules transport, fixedwing aircraft. Freedom of information act and department of defense info. What it was really like to fly combat helicopters in vietnam.