“Spooky” Coming to the Mid America Air Museum

The Mid-America Air Museum is proud to announce that on the morning of Saturday October 5th at approximately 9:30 a.m. a Vietnam era combat aircraft known as the AC-47 Spooky will be landing at the airport in Liberal and will taxi to the Air Museum. The aircraft will be spending the day until about 3:30 or 4 p.m. before departing for their next destination. Admission to the Museum will be free all day long. Admission to see the plane is also free, although donations are always appreciated to help keep the plane flying.

The “Spooky” is a World War II C-47 cargo and troop transport airplane that was converted for use in Vietnam to be a close air support aircraft to help protect ground troops particularly when their base camps were under attack. The civilian version was the Douglas DC-3. The aircraft was also sometimes called “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” To convert the large twin-engine plane into the AC-47 gunship the Airforce cut holes in the left side of the plane and installed three guns which could fire between 6,000 and 8,000 rounds a minute. The aircraft would fly a continuous left-hand circle while firing the three guns on any target they wanted to obliterate. In all they could fire well over 50,000 rounds on a concentrated target up to 8,000 feet away in just a few minutes.