314FMS

I agree. I never noticed the absence of external tanks until I had some of my 35mm slides of Tachi, CCK, and Nha Trang transfered to computer files. I have sent three pictures to Bob Daley to fill in the hole in the production number gallery. I mentioned this absence of external tanks on the aircraft to Bob, but another picture of the rear of 64-0556 and 63-7878 sitting together on the PSP in Tachikawa (was not sure why I took this shot, but upon zooming in it is a picture of another C-130 starting take off roll) and in the picture it looks to me like tanks may be installed. External tanks were sometimes removed for access to repair the fuel quantity instrument system wiring and probes. I have another picture of myself working on the external tank of an unknown number aircraft. I will post both of these pictures in my user gallery. Lee

Casey I probably should have contacted you with this picture. This picture and two others were sent to Bob Daley last month and I have been looking to see if they would show up in the production number gallery. Since they had not, I loaded the picture into what I thought would be the missing spot in the production number gallery and it turned out to be the specific aircraft gallery instead. Sorry for the mix up. Lee

Back one page. http://www.c-130hercules.net/showthread.php?t=3793 Lee

Don Thanks for the info. That sure would have to be the aircraft. I just posted my picture of 55-0012 in the hanger in my gallery and the left wing damage looks to be a match. Your eyes are OK, photo is a little out of focus. I was told the accident was caused by the failure to remove masking tape on the tank venting and the pressure built up enough to cause the wing to fail. Hard to believe that masking tape could cause that kind of damage. Lee

Wondering if you were at Tachi in early 66 when an A model was being refueled after being in phase docks, left wing cracked leaking fuel onto ramp, right wing went heavy and tipped aircraft wing into ramp, cracking it and leaking more fuel. Fire trucks hosed down the area for a long time and I heard they were worried about Tachi city blowing up if fire hit the fuel in the sewers. I think I may have a picture of the aircraft in a hanger with the left wing outboard of #2 engine missing, but aircraft number is not visible. Wing was replaced and aircraft flew again as far as I know.

I am wondering if you remember when this happened? I was at Tachikawa TDY from CCK from Dec 65 to June 66 (never arrived for the first time at CCK until end of June 1966) and the only time I remember about the protesters at the end of the runway was on May 1st 1966 and think it had something to do with Russian (Communist?) May Day celebration. I remember being told that a Flying Tiger or Slick Airways CL-44 had almost clipped the fence while landing that day and had scattered the protesters for awhile. People could get so close to the end of the runway because the runway divided the base about in half and town was just past the fence on both ends of the runway. I had a hard time getting around until I learned to ask if where I was going to was Tachi East or Tachi West. Lived in East and worked in West, so took bus from side to side at least twice daily. It was a great post, almost as good as CCK.