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29 While the most famous fixed-wing gunships proved to be the AC-47, AC-119, and AC-130, the Air Force did initiate other experimental projects to bolster the gunship fleets and even replace the AC-47s. During Project Tailchaser in August 1964, experts at Eglin AFB converted a Convair C-131B, serial number 53–7820, by arming it with a General Electric 7.62mm SUU-11A/A Gatling minigun. Other modified aircraft included the AC-123K and NC-123K, which were all part of Project Black Spot. In the mid-1960s Fairchild-Hiller reconfigured 183 C-123Bs into C-123Ks by attaching two J85-GE-17 jet engines pods under the wings. In early 1966 they extended the nose to house an X-band forward-looking radar. Just aft of the new radome was a turret with a FLIR imaging system, LLLTV, and laser rangefinder and illuminator . They also installed a low-level Doppler navigation radar and weapons release computer. The aircraft were equipped with twelve chute dispensers in a container in the aft cargo compartment. Each chute carried three cluster bomb units (CBUs) that, depending on the type of CBU, loaded twentysix hundred to sixty-three hundred one-pound miniature bombs.1 By February 1968, Fairchild had incorporated the AN/ ASD-5 Black Crow direction finder set and engine ignition sensor on two C-123Ks. Known as Black Spot aircraft, they were designated as AC-123K or NC-123K. They flew twenty-eight operational missions between August 19 and October 23, 1968, over the South Korean Sea. From November 14, 1968, to May 11, 1969, the aircraft flew night missions over the Ho Chi Minh Trail. They launched 186 missions , destroyed 415 trucks, and damaged 273 more. They also attacked boats in the Mekong Delta. Subsequently, the 3 A Wondrous Variety Moving Towards the Spectre 30 | CHAPTER 3 Black Spots were assigned to the 16th SOS at Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base, and from December 1969 until June 1970 they continued to operate against enemy infiltration efforts until both aircraft were reconstituted as standard C-123Ks at Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona, and continued to serve as normal transports. Several other C-123Bs were painted black on the underside and standard three-tone camouflage on top and employed as flare ships by the 14th SOW using the call sign Candle.2 While the C, AC, and NC-123s performed numerous missions in several configurations, they proved to be a utility infielder to the star shortstop—the AC-130. The role of the C-123–based gunship, while important, was secondary to that of the original gunship, the AC-47D, and even the interim replacement , the AC-119G/K. The AC-130 would become the star of the US fixedwing gunship fleet in Vietnam and would be the only one to remain in the active inventory after the war was over. A Prologue to Spectre: A Gunship II Background On November 1, 1966, Air Force leaders initiated the Gunship II program by selecting the C-130 airframe to replace the AC-47D. With four powerful turboprop engines, it possessed greater range and higher performance capabilities than its aging cousin. Even the initial A-model AC-130, with four 7.62mm and four 20mm Gatling guns, carried greater firepower than did Puff, with three 7.62mm guns. Eventually it would mount an array of sensors and radars the likes of which had not been witnessed in such a fixed-wing cargotype aircraft.3 In February 1967, key personnel at ASC, led by then major Ron Terry, selected the very first C-130A to be modified into a gunship. Originally built by Lockheed in 1954, tail number 54–1626, Vulcan Express, or Super Spooky, was quickly reconfigured by an organic workforce for combat testing in Vietnam . On September 15, 1967, Terry returned to Southeast Asia, this time with the next generation of gunship—the AC-130A. The resulting test report declared that the new Spectre was a “threefold improvement over its predecessor , the AC-47.” Many in TAC and PACAF went so far as to declare it “the most cost-effective close-support and interdiction weapon in the Air Force inventory.” The Air Force deployed four AC-130s to Southeast Asia in November 1968. Soon thereafter another AC-130 arrived in-theater. Together, the five Spectre gunships proved the most lethal interdiction weapons of the Vietnam conflict. Between January 1968 and April 1969, AC-130s flew fewer than 4 percent...

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