Cessna A-37 Dragonfly
The Super Tweet
“Cessna's trainer, armed to the teeth for Vietnam.”
Cessna · military
The US Air Force needed a cheap jet for close air support in Vietnam, so Cessna took its T-37 Tweet trainer, doubled the engine power, added tip tanks, armour, a minigun in the nose and eight hardpoints, and called it the Dragonfly. It flew thousands of sorties from short, rough fields, and air forces across Latin America kept flying it for decades afterward. The ones in private hands today are some of the few jets with an honest combat record a civilian can own.
The A-37 carried a 7.62 mm minigun in its nose that could fire 3,000 rounds a minute, mounted in a jet that started life teaching students to fly.
A stubby, wide fuselage with the two pilots side by side under one canopy, big tip tanks, and the engines tucked into the wing roots. Shorter and fatter than any other jet on the ramp.
One might be overhead right now.
Bogey turns the The Super Tweet from a dot in the sky into a card in your logbook.
