February 5,
1970
Planes that took GI's home from Vietnam were called "freedom
birds". Back in
my C-141 days we
were the freedom bird for a
plane-load of GI's leaving from
Tan
Son
Nhut. As we lifted off
the runway and I raised the gear handle we heard a loud rumble from
the
rear of the airplane. We wondered if there was a landing gear
problem, but the indicators looked OK. The AC asked the
loadmaster if he could see anything wrong. The loadmaster
reported back that the sound was OK--it was a plane-load of GI's
stamping their feet with joy!
C-130 crews were also glad to leave Vietnam, even though we knew
we'd
be back. I was busy using the rudder pedals so I never stamped
my
feet. This particular day we lifted off as usual, I called for
gear up
as usual, and the copilot
raised the
gear
handle
as
usual. But the
nose gear didn't make its usual comforting clunk. And the nose
gear indicator light stayed on. Uh
oh.
The first thing I wanted to know was whether that nose gear was part
way up. If it was all the way down, we could
land normally, otherwise we were in trouble. So we put the
gear
handle back down and all three green lights came
on. "Three in the green" meant that all three gears were
down and locked--good!
I wasn't about to fly to CCK with the gear down or press my luck
raising it again. So I broke off the departure and made a VFR
landing to see what was wrong with the nose gear. I parked the
airplane and left the
engines running.
The flight engineer (who shall remain unnamed) climbed out the crew
door to examine the nose
gear. He returned to the flight deck looking sheepish and
holding
something red.
Can you
guess
what
it
was and who bought the beer that night?
May 27, 1971
It took us about 2 hours to fly from
Tan
Son
Nhut
to Quang Tri and
another 2 hours back. No fuel was available at Quang Tri, but
that was OK because we had over 5 hours of fuel onboard.
We were a few minutes from TSN when Saigon Tea called us. They
asked whether we
had
enough fuel to turn around and go to back up to Nha Trang, pick up a
load, and return to TSN (about a 3-hour round trip). We
didn't. Nha Trang often had no fuel available, but the load
must
have been pretty important because they told us to go there
anyway.
Cam
Ranh
Bay
was
about
15
miles
south
of
Nha
Trang, so we could stop there
for fuel if
necessary.
As we approached Cam Ranh Bay we asked their ALCE to find out
whether
Nha
Trang had fuel available. They said yes, so we flew on and
descended into the
traffic
pattern
at
Nha
Trang.
Nha Trang ALCE called us to ask what cargo we had to offload.
We
told them that we were empty and that Saigon Tea had sent us to pick
up a load for Tan Son Nhut. ALCE replied that they had no load
for Tan Son Nhut. Saigon TEA had sent us on a
500-mile
wild goose chase!
So I broke out
of the Nha Trang traffic pattern and headed back to
Cam Ranh Bay for
fuel (which by now was a bit low). Everybody (including me)
complained about slow service at Cam Ranh Bay so I was ready for a
lot
of ramp time. But the fuel truck arrived before the props
stopped
turning! And aerial port had a load ready for us before
refueling
was complete! It was the best service I'd ever seen at CRB.
At the end of the day I wrote a complimentary mission report on
service
at Cam Ranh Bay. I also wrote a mission report on Saigon Tea.
