Centaur 21 Light Fire Team gunship mission supporting C Troop, 3/4 Cav

This audio file was sent to us by Bob Taylor, Heavy Scouts (Mini Guns) Crew Chief and records a mission flown in early 1968 in support of C Troop, 3/4 Cav. Centaur 21, Rick Williams, flying a Heavy Scout Gunship, was the Mission Commander. Centaur 40, Charlie Johnson, flying a HOGS gunship, was the trail ship for the mission.

The Bob Taylor recording was electronically cleaned up by Bruce Powell to remove some of the high pitch whine that we all recall dominated every other sound in a Huey.

The audio file is available in three file types, WMA - MP3 - WAV, so you can use the version that works best for you and your browser.

Let me know if any version does not work for you and what device and browser you are using if any of the three file types don't work properly for you. Click on Charlie Johnson to send me an email with your comments.

The WAV file version is a much larger file than the other two. You might want to try the WMA or MP3 clips first.

Centaur 21 gunship mission - WMA file     Centaur 21 gunship mission - MP3 file     Centaur 21 gunship mission - WAV file

We don't know which version of the Heavy Scout Mini-Gun gunship Centaur was flying on this mission. It would have been one of the two versions seen below.

The photo on the left shows 1Lt. Rick Williams with the standard Heavy Scout mini-gun weapons: Seven round pod of 2.75" FFAR (Folding Fin Aerial Rocket) and the 7.62 mm six barrel rotating mini-gun. Rick is on the right side of the UH-1C gunship, camera facing toward the front of the aircraft. The weapons seen in the photo are duplicated on the left side of the aircraft. (Photo sent in by Rick Williams) 

To the right is a photo of Heavy Scout door gunner Sgt. Ward with the (definitely non-standard) "Mini Hog" Heavy Scout gunship. The seven round rocket pod seen in Rick Williams' photo was replaced by a nineteen round version of the 2.75" FFAR  rocket pod while retaining the Heavy Scout mini-guns. This photo shows the left side of the UH-1C and the camera is facing toward the rear of the aircraft. The weapons seen in the photo are duplicated on the right side of the aircraft. (Photo sent in by Pat Eastes)

(Just for general information: The nineteen round rocket pod seen in the photo on the right was more commonly used on the 'HOGS' when it replaced the 24 rocket rectangular rocket pods. The 'HOGS' gun-ships were the UH-1C with the 40 mm grenade launcher in the nose.)

Rick Williams with the standard Heavy Scout mini-gun layout        Pat Estes' photo of Door Gunner Ward's "Mini Hog" weapons

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