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C-130 Airlift in Vietnam |
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C-130 Airlift in Vietnam |
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A little airfield with not much activity. Red dirt just like N.C. A black C-130 took off just as we landed--doing whatever secret squirrel things that blackbirds do. We brought in a 2.5 ton truck and two generators.
Airborn from Danang now on the way to Nha Trang with 80 combat-loaded Korean troops. We're "racing" a B-model down the coast. Though they're older, they're about 7 tons lighter than our E-model.
Returning up the coast to Danang. We had no upload at Nha Trang so we spent about 3 minutes from shutdown to engine start and zipped out feet wet.
Roy Grimes (navigator) is flying the airplane now while B.V. Hammond (copilot) navigates. Roy has a private pilot's license so he at least knows what the instruments are for. However, he did push the mike button the wrong way and gave B.V. a lesson on radar range delay over the radio instead of the interphone!
Now Danang to Tuy Hoa feet wet at 11,500'. Roy did pretty well and BV's radar vector to Danang was about a mile off. At Danang we got gas. I got a hoagie plus one to take back to the loadmaster (Dobbins made sergeant today!). The CP & nav were slow returning to the aircraft so the eng and LM and I cranked up engines before they returned (which surprised them).
On the ground at Tuy Hoa--cheated death again. We've offloaded our Korean pax and are picking up 4 pallets of engines for TSN.The Koreans left behind a "Sunday Seoul" magazine as a souvenir.
We talked to Phu Cat Overflight on the way down and he asked if we were going to Cam Ranh Bay. I told him no but suggested he try a Terry-bird (B-model) because Cam Ranh Bay is their home base. Seems there was a radar controller at Phu Cat who'd been curtailed suddenly and wanted to catch his freedom bird at Cam Ranh Bay tonight. Terry 840 asked Mother for an ops stop at Phu Cat to pick up the guy and surprisingly it was approved. For once Mother made a good call.
So I wrote a trip report saying that Mother is not totally heartless. Returning to TSN there was a hungus (sp?) amount of weather covering the country. We flew what seemed like half way to the Phillippines getting around it.
