frainstang

Anybody know what happened to 63-7816? Last I heard it was in Puerto Rico. I started as 3rd, or maybe it was 4th, wiper on her in 69, then worked to CC with only an assistant, no wipers, before going to beautiful uptown Danang on OV-10's in '71

Maybe a technicality but the OV-10 and most smaller turboprop aircraft use an electric starter. It is actually a starter generator. I never heard of one shorting out and kicking the prop over unless the switch was moved to start by a live person.

http://www.homesforourtroops.org/site/PageServer Just a reminder for anyone that can help. I have no involvement other than giving what I could.

Hey nascarpop, don't know how long you have lived in Palmdale but if you've been there long enough you may remember the blackbirds that used to fly out of plant 42. Seeing a herky is cool, I always ran out when we had them in Portland, but seeing the blackbird in full AB as it crossed Sierra Hwy then standing it on the tail and disappearing into the smog from LA was "AWSOME."

Never was issued a weapon but while on rote to Mildenhall from Dyess in 1970, I was asked by someone in the unit if I knew how to use a .45 or qualified on an M-16. I said I knew how to use the .45 but had never qual'd on anything. I figured out later, when we started painting big red crosses on our planes that we were doing something that may need a weapon. It turned out that we were part of the mission that carried a mobil hospital into Aman Jordan. Before the hospital there were plans to evac civilians out of the country and we would have been part of the group that did that. Later on the same rotation, we flew to Incirlick and carried a fighter squadron's maint troops back to Torrejon, Spain. That part kind of hijacks this thread but also answers Gizzard's questions. When we got to Torrejon, we were surrounded by sky cops. Turns out the fighter guys had a whole lot of a fine psychedelic substance in their gear which was easily purchased in Turkey. Searching went on for several hours, dry bays, oil/hydralic storage and cans, many other places. Usually I liked going to Torrejon but that trip everybody decided it was time to go back to Mildenhall that night.

DB and DZ were Dyess birds in the late 60's and early 70's. If I remember, DB was the 348th and DZ was the 347th TAS. I was in the 347th and had 63-7816 then 63-7821 before going onto OV-10's at Danang.