The
nickname given by US ground troops in
Vietnam to the venerable
Douglas DC-3 (aka
C-47, aka
Dakota, aka Gooney Bird) in its
close air support role.
First used in Vietnam in October 1964, the planes were fitted with side-firing General Electric MXU-470/A 7.62-mm Minigun pods at the midship door stations. Rocket pods and other ordnance were often aboard, but the miniguns were the main event, because of their ability to put a bullet into every square foot of a football field every minute. Able to carry prodigious amounts of ammunition and to loiter where needed better than jet aircraft, the planes often flew at night, for their own safety and because that was when ground troops most desperately needed support.
To troops dug in at night and facing an unseen enemy, the arrival of Puff in a snarling drone of electrically-fired guns spitting tongues of fire and trailing tails of smoke and falling brass was the most welcome sight imaginable.
(and probably quite a show if you were on the local chronic - every fifth round a tracer)
The nickname was less frequently applied to the Dakota's more sophisticated successor, the AC-130 Spectre gunship.