I
N THE 1980s, Colombia’s armed
forces were battling various
heavily armed drug cartels and
guerrilla groups in the Andean
region — mountainous terrain
that is di cult for government
troops to use heavy weapons in. The
big question was how to provide
e ective and prolonged artillery
support to these ground forces.
The nation’s leaders had seen how
e ective the US Air Force’s Douglas
AC-47 ‘Spooky’ gunships had been
over similar landscape in South-east
Asia and decided these ying arsenals
were the answer.
The AC-47 was developed from
the Douglas DC-3/C-47 Skytrain that
dates back to 1935. They were rugged,
simple to maintain, relatively cheap
and available in large numbers. They
also had long endurance, an important
factor considering how Colombia is a
vast country.
The US had developed the AC-47
‘Spooky’ gunship concept in the
early 1960s for use in South-east Asiaand by 1965 had some 30 AC-47Ds
in service. They were each armed
with three 7.62mm General Electric
SUU-11A mini-guns, each capable of
ring 6,000 rounds per minute. They
could loiter over the battle eld for
hours, bringing tremendous repower
to bear against targets on the ground.
Although the AC-47D proved to
be very e ective, a new version was
developed, tted with two M61 Vulcan
20mm guns and a pair of 40mm
Bofors anti-aircraft guns. By the end
of the 1960s, however, the type was
gradually retired and replaced by a
new generation of gunships, which
even today remain an important
element of the USAF in the shape
of various C-130 Hercules variants
from the aging AC-130U ‘Spooky’ to
the brand-new AC-130J ‘Ghostrider’.
Meanwhile, Colombia placed orders
for its rst C-47 Skytrain transports
in 1944 and went on to acquire 60
examples, including aircraft that
served with SATENA, the government-
owned civilian airline.A pair of AC-47Ts
(serials FAC-1654
and 1667) above
typical jungle
operating terrain.44 August 2018 //^ http://www.combataircraft.net
44-51 Fantasma C.indd 44 22/06/2018 10:24