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Need information on C-130s carrying spray tanks


docbarnhill
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I was stationed at Ft. Eustis VA in Spring of 1971. I was on a C-130 at Patrick Henry airport and it had been spraying Agent Orange. Anybody have any way to find out information about tail numbers and other information about these planes?

Any help would be appreciated. You can either post a reply here or send an email to me at docbarnhill<at>yahoo.com

Thanks ahead of time,

Doc Barnhill

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I was flying out of Langley at that time, and there were NO C-130s spraying agent orange. What you probably saw was fuel coming out the dump tubs on each wing tip,. They did this quite commonly, at low level and bouncing around, especially in turns. or else, it was dumping fuel intentionally. I was at Langley, off and on, for three and ahalf years and never knew of agent orange activity. If anybody else does, speak up, we got a whole new group of Agent orange victims.

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Sorry i didn\'t read this closer, with my glasses ON. This thing had tanks??? Coulda been one of the early firefighting systems birds, but why at Pat Henry? you sure it was a 130 in stead of a 123? they flew most of the Ranch Hand AO stuff. Plus, havin\' flown a million laps around the flag pole down there, often in that area, I do not recall any defoliation. However, this, like I said in my other reply, could open some very interesting situations.:ohmy: Bob Daly, you were around there at the same time, I think. What are your thoughts?:unsure:

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I know they sprayed for mosquitos with C123\'s during that time. Could that be what you saw? I don\'t know if they ever used C130\'s for mosquito spraying or not. I\'m with Gizzard, I don\'t think Agent Orange was used any place but V.N. I could be wrong.

Glenn

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the aircraft was at patrick henry airport on display.. it had spray tanks and spray booms under the trailing edges of the wing...the crew chief told me they had been spraying agent orange...this was before there was any great reason to be concerned about chemicals...i would almost bet my life it was a C-130,but i\'ve been wrong before...you may know what nearly 40 years will do!!!!but i am sure about the spray equipment and the crew chief telling me they had been spraying agent orange....thanks again for the replys....doc

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We had C-130\'s and C-123\'s at Langley when I was there, 1969 to 1973.

I never heard of any 130 spray missions or saw any 130\'s with tanks for spraying or spray bars.

The 123\'s were all equipped for spraying. They flew mosquito spray missions in VA and all over the East Coast. They all had tanks and spray bars on them. Since most of them had come back to Langley from Vietnam it would be a good bet that they had previously sprayed agent orange, but I never heard of it being used stateside in aerial spraying, but of course that doesn\'t mean it didn\'t happen. There have been agent orange contaminated sites in the US, and they must have tested it somewhere. Maybe you can find someone who flew the 123\'s stateside.

Bob

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Use of Agent Orange at most major US military bases as well as overseas bases is fairly well documented. Please check http://bluewaternavy.org/bases/1Herbicides_Outside_of_Vietnam%5B1%5D.pdf

The entire web site of www.bluewaternavy.org is a massive repository of documentation, mostly military, on the wide spread use of Agent Orange. The use in Canada at Base Gagetown is one egregious example. But some of these applications were hand sprayed along perimeter fence lines, as opposed to sprayed from the air. But I think you will be surprised at the amount of data that is currently surfacing as to when and where Agent Orange was used.

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Bob, I was at Langley, more or less, from July 70 to Feb 74. I can\'t for the life of me remember seein\' any 123\'s there.Where they gone by the time i got there or is my memory worse than I think? When I first got there, there was just the 36th and 37th, later the 39th came along, and toward then end of i guess 73 an AWACS bird came in. One of our FE\'s transferred to that, as a matter of fact. Of course there was the 48 FIS up by our end of the filed.

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The 123\'s were assigned to Base Flight down at the east end past Base Ops. I knew one of the pilots pretty well, Jake Green. He hung out at the bar and was buddies with Tery Oldham in the 37th.

I later met him in Dallas and he was flying for Braniff.

I used to see them a lot early in the AM. They would fly low and slow over Langley just as the sun came up spraying mosquitos.

Bob

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well i must have remembered the plane wrong,but it had a rear ramp and spray equipment,but with y\'alls info it must have been a c-123...that is not the important thing as i\'m trying to prove that there was an aircraft at patrick henry at an airport display in the spring of 1971[maybe memorial day??]...it was on static display...by locating the aircraft ,then the maintaince records will show what i\'m in need of...if any pilot or crew remembers this event then it is a start in finding the tail numbers of the spray equiped planes there...thanks again...doc

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Herks have been used for spray missions, it was (or is) a reserve unit that was out of Rickenbacker, then moved to Wright Patt when Rickenbacker got closed.

My buddy there told me the spray mission was shutting down and they were becoming trash haulers. I know they used to do alot of mosquito missions all over the eastern sea board, but have no idea if they ever sprayed anything else.

My info is dated though, we are talking back in 90 or 91 and knew a pilot and FE at the unit.

Dan

Oh, forgot to say they the used to be a 123 unit but converted over to a couple of herks, don\'t remember the pilots name but I think the FE\'s name was Glenn Carey

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the others have convinced me that it must have been c-123\'s and if the ones you are talking about were around in the early 1990\'s,then those are twenty years too new!!!now i\'m trying to see if anyone remembers what the unit at langley was that had the 123\'s and anybody who may know about them... thanks in advance doc

my e-mail is docbarnhill<at>yahoo.com

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When I was at Langley from 1963 to 1965, the C-123\'s were assigned to the 4500th Air Base Wing. I remember them flying in formation just about every evening in the summer time spraying for mosquitos out over Buckroe (Buckaroo) Beach & other coastal communities.

Don R.

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\"the crew chief told me they had been spraying agent orange\"

Doc,

It is most likely that the airplane in question was one of the mosquito spray birds based at Langley.

I think you were being led astray by whoever you talked to that day. Or perhaps you misinterpreted what you heard.

Those airplanes may well have been used in Viet Nam as AO spray birds but there are no records I can find that indicate they were spraying AO in the U.S during the time you indicate.

I personally would not hold out any hope for gaining a VA rating based on this story.

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I just logged on and saw that someone needs info on the spray birds.

Well The spray squadron is now at Youngstown Ohio with the 910th AW. We are the only unit to do this mission and it did start at langley. it then moved to Rickenbacker and then to youngstown. I fly allot of spray missions here . So if you got questions feel free to ask

Msgt William Archambault, Flight Engineer

773rd AS, 910th AW ,Youngstown Ohio

Heres my E-mail Address

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  • 1 month later...
  • 3 months later...

The aerial spray mission with C-123K\'s was at the Air Force Reserve\'s 907TAG (later TAW) at Ricknbacker ANGB when I joined the unit in 1983. Note that the aerial spray mission is completely different fom the aerial firefighting mission... We used the old Ranch Hand spray systems to spray insecticides and a herbicide (not AO) until the 123\'s were retired to AMARC in the mid-80\'s. One of our C-130A \"Rivit Victor\" aircraft was modified to carry the old spray systems (it was the first C-130 to do the aerial spray mission). The unit later converted to \"straight\" C-130A\'s and then to C-130E\'s, but only a few aircraft were modified for the spray mission. A new spray system (MASS) was acquired for the C-130E. When the 907th converted to the C-141B in the early 1990\'s, the mission (and the MASS equipment) was transferred to the 910TAW at Youngstown...

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  • 3 months later...

Bob,

I just tried to send this but lost the link. I think I sent you the picture of 3146 sitting on a dry lake bed while doing a LAPES for BP. You can see some brackets below the ailerons. When I saw it at Mirana in '89 it had what looked like 3" AN couplings mounted through the aileron shrouds as well as brackets attached to those same dzus rows. The aft fuselage had been repainted aft of 737 and there was some orange stains along the fuselage seams and horizontal stabs.

There was 4-5 months of records missing before it went into AeroCorp for rework prior to being turned over to the Forestry Service.

I was told by an air force captain sometime later that there was an attempt to use soon-to-be surplus A models to spray the coca plantations in Colombia.

Edited by Wombat
Missed info
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  • 8 years later...

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