A look inside the AC-130 — one of the most powerful military aircraft of all time

The AC-130 has humble origins. Essentially it is a 1950s cargo plane, the C-130 Hercules, decked out with guns, advanced avionics, guns, and more guns. 

Able to fly faster and higher than a helicopter, but with excellent range and loiter time, the AC-130 is one of the most effective platforms for delivering devastation downrange available on air, sea, or land. 

The magic of the AC-130 is it's ability to slowly bank and fly in cricles, while the side mounted guns rain down destruction on a single central point. 

Recent footage from Warleaks takes us inside this mighty gunship, as we'll explore in the slides below.

Here we see the AC-130U ripping it's 25 mm Gatling gun.

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Here's what that looks like from the crew's point of view.

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Here we see the view from the ground.

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