A real life picture of "Puff the Magic Dragon"

I took this picture in November of 1969. I was at Camp McDermott at Nha Trang. We had been mortared and the AF guys came to kick some ass with Puff. I just happen to have a camera that night. One of the few times I had a camera during a little action.

Thank you for your service!

Thank you for sharing your picture too!

Cool

I wonder how much it would be to build a repro puff before the Obama scare drives the parts up?

That's a great photo. I love anything fixed wing gunship related because I spent some time as a gunner on the AC-130H Spectre. The best job in the world!

Thanks for sharing the photo,
John Thomas

Very cool pic. Was actually my first album purchase as a kid. Probably about the same time you took the pic. Peter, Paul and Mary. Wonder what ever happened to it. Definately not in my vinyl collection. I'm getting old. Kinda remember whistling that tune. 7.62 miniguns possibly.

I bet that gunship was a sight to see in the day. Turning your enemy into bits of red goo.

+1. My uncle has told me plenty of stories of "Puff" from his time there too - that pic looks like his descriptions.

Thanks again.

-JC

My AFJROTC instructor flew one of those in that time frame, that would be cool if it was him in there. Thanks for the pic.

What weapons were on a H model?

At the time I was on them (mid-1990's), there were two 20mm gatling guns, one 40mm, and one 105mm. Good times!

They've since removed the 20mm guns. The H model is not pressurized, so we normally flew pretty low (above 10,000 ft we had to be on oxygen, which was a mess of O2 hoses and comm cords with the large crew size). The 20mm range was pretty limited, and with today's "pocket rocket" type missiles, it is too dangerous to fly in high threat environmnets at low altitude. Hence, the removal of the 20mms.

John Thomas

Cool pic. Thank you for your service.

Gotta love Spooky. Thank you for your service too.

This.

When you look at that "death ray" coming down just think that is only one round in five tracer.

Awesome pic, thanks for sharing!

What they said. ^^^

I got to play w/ Spectre...quite an experience...better then drugs or booze.
The Canal Zone. With the team in a crater at Empire Range. Turned the boonie cap inside out, exposing the panel and called Spectre on the PRC-77.
After a short discussion w/ that other worldly voice "..."xxxx, this is Spectre, over, etc...", Spectre ID'ed us and responded (w/ appropriate trng safetys) to our request for assistance- enemy troops in open, X meters, 360 degree round us...
The staccato and wall of flame from the sky from the miniguns and the evenly spaced...boom...boom...boom...of the 105mm was incredible.
It was like God speaking...

I remember seeing one parked at Howard hanger back in the mid '80's...Armed guards around it...

One of our loadmasters saw one at the airfield in El Salvador...He said you could make out the old USAF tail number through the new paint...It was one of our squadron's [328TAS] old C130-A models, converted to AC configuration...

AF Security Police at Howard back then had a neat armored car (made by Dodge, I think) with steel plate 'suicide' doors, flip down steel plate windshield visor w/slits, full armor everywhere...SP guys hated it...Like driving an oven...

"DELTA XRAY TO RED DRAGON. BRING THE RAIN. REPEAT,BRING THE RAIN". Awesome pics. Thanks, and thanks for your service. I've read multiple accounts about how accurate they were - must have been scary as hell though, to be underneath all that coming down all around you.

Release the eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeevil!!!

Yet another reason to be proud to be an American

Thanks for your service!

Here is another picture I took with a little action going on. The picture doesn't show much but there was a fire fight going on at the perimeter. The Huey was going in low to strafe the bad guys.

The thing with taking pictures with shit going on is that usually taking the pictures is your last priority.




Most of the time these were the kind of pictures we took:



Sometimes we took pictures of our living quarters because we knew nobody would ever believe us:



In 1967 before they issued us the M-16-A1 we were able to take pictures of our M-14 goodness.



Sometimes when we didn't have anything else to do we would take pictures of our buddies showing off their hog.

One of my favorite VN-era AC-47 pictures...

Sadly, nobody talks about the AC-119G/K Shadow/Stinger, same layout, but inside the chassis of an C-119 FLying Boxcar. THese replaced the old AC-47s and flew alongside the early versions of the AC-130 in VN and then flew with the RVNAF until the end of the war.

You mean one of these old doo-hickeys?

Yeah, that looks right!

Must not be Howard, though...There's no sweat-soaked SP's hanging out the open doors...

Those 20's were very impressive whilst firing.

So, John, when you building your own? We're all waiting for the pics........

I have a 20mm Vulcan barrel just waiting to be built up. It's even chrome lined.

Hmph! Green Mountain has barrels for sale...

http://www.gmriflebarrel.com/productdetail.aspx?id=M-308C

M-308C 7.62 X 51 NATO Chambered Minigun Barrel Blank

7.62X51 NATO Chambered 22" x 1.25" Raw Barrel Blank chambered specific for MINIGUN (see chamber detail). 41V50 Milspec vanadium alloy, 1:10 twist, button rifled, thermostress relieved, precision air gaged, chambered 7.62x51 NATO for MINIGUN Gatling style heavy machine gun.

Price: $34.95

Kick some ASS Puff !!!!!

Sounds like a good barrel to have threaded into a Rem 700 or a Win 70 receiver.

Wow, that seems like a great deal on that minigun barrel.
Says un-chambered on the web site as of today.

The price is so low it seems like it barely covers the material cost.
Wonder if they have a bunch from an order that didn’t materialize.
I might order one for a project.

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