Welcome
Hello!
Welcome to Frank Vaughan's Unofficial USAF Gunship Web Site.
This web site is designed as a tribute to the USAF fixed wing gunship program, those who designed them, those who flew them, those who kept them flying. It is not just for the aircraft and crews of the 16th Special Operations Squadron in Ubon during the Vientam War, but is for all gunshippers -- from Terry and The Pirates in the early FC-47s to the newest AC-130U gunships that are doing such a tremendous job over in the middle east.
We are all gunshippers and we all share a common bond.
I have spent a lot of time over the last year getting the new photo gallery up and running. Here is the deal: not only can you view the images, but you can leave comments on, and rate each image. This means that if something is missing or wrong with a given caption, you can correct it right away via your comments, or provide additional detail. ther are still a number of images without captions and I am working on that now.
I have added a new message board, which will probably take a while to get up and running. Unfortunately, all of the messages and content from the old Discus board were lost, but we should be able to get some pretty good comments here in a very short time. The initial forum stucture is somewhat of a guess, and will probably change over time. Since this is a moderated forum, and one must be registered in order to post, we won't have to worry about too much spam.
If there is enough interest, I can also add a live chat function to the site. Let me know if that is something useful.
I especially want the newest generation of gunshippers to feel at home here. I'd love to have your pictures from Iraq and Afghanistan -- especially party pictures (I just know that you guys are having great, great parties.
I have also added some Gogle AdSense advertisements in an effort to offset some of the costs involved in running this web site and its companion, www.vwip.org, the Vietnam War Internet Project. I have no control over the ads that run, and only get paid when people click through on one of the ads. I'll have the ads scattered throughout the site -- if they bother you, simply ignore them. Right now I'm making about 32 cents a week, and with that kind of revenue, I can't afford to gie it us. <grin>
In the meantime, enjoy the site and shoot me some feedback at: webmaster@gunships.org.