Sixty-two years after being assembled by Douglas Aircraft, a twin-engine C-47 “Gooney Bird” transport aircraft is still putting in a good day’s work at Hurlburt Field, Fla. At Hurlburt, the 6th Special Operations Squadron uses it to train air commandos for deployments as advisers to air forces in developing countries—many of which still fly the World War II-era C-47. It was produced in scores of variants, one of which was the AC-97 gunship, known in the Vietnam War as “Puff the Magic Dragon.” Lt. Col. Al Phillips, a Hurlburt pilot, told the Associated Press, “It’s a very challenging airplane.” But, he addes, “I love flying it.”
The Pentagon’s new counter-drone task force will play a direct role in arming Airmen with new weapons to defend Air Force agile combat employment, or ACE, air bases in austere locations against enemy drone attacks, the director of Joint Interagency Task Force 401 said Oct. 14.
