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Chuck

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Everything posted by Chuck

  1. IN 1969 at CCK we lost 2? at cruise alt that departed CCK forTaipei that I believe was a runaway prop.... the nxt time it happened the flight deck caught it in time? I was in country during both & i seem to remember that there was talk of grounding the E's until that flight crew caught and pulled it out.... Going in inverted made my not so sharp anymore thinking....
  2. I love the Carolinas & would live there in a heart beat @68 yrs old! But at 18 yrs old (born & raised in Upstate NY) I recall that the town outside the main gate at Pope was called Fayette-Nam,,, And If I recall correctly... we were allowed on only one street in Fayette-Nam... Being in the 346th, from '66 to '70 I only remember the "City of Impact" & then of course, there was the ~159 days out of Clark for the Pueblo & Tet & a year out of CCK to show a young guy the "real world"
  3. I think that the C130 crash in this movie is the Navy 130 that crashed & burned on the runway at Khe Sanh that happened shortly before they would not let us land at Khe Sanh any more and only let 123's & C7's land and we then started dropping CDS... Late Feb early March 1968 Tet?
  4. J Conner2,,, "The first time I was in-country and we went to Bin Hoa I got out and walked around the plane and a 150MM fired outbound. I dove under the plane thinking it was an incoming roun" Ha! John! I did the same thing in early '68 first time into Song Be with a bladder bird or a load of 175m? Shells! The guys from the !st Cav that were 'dug' in around the strip got a very big chuckle out of that as we just landed & were still loaded.... Of course every time we went in an outta there we would dust them all with the ole red clay...
  5. Slept on lower bunk on flight deck for a solid week in dec '67 or '68 at Nellis while on "Harvest Reaper" ...out in back once a day to Love Field LTV... some days only picked up a single UPS size parcel at Love Field that they needed for the F-111 flight tests... Engineer on ~3d day made me go downtown to hotel and take a shower...I was saving money for Christmas... I found out that the Desert gets Very Cold when the Sun Goes down in Dec...
  6. This is kinda, more than obvious, now, in my old age, but I seem to remember, (1966-1970 time frame 346th lm) tho, I never was on board for a jato take off, but I do remember, more than several 'discussions' regarding pulling the T handles to release the spent bottles that you must do from the bottom up....... I seem to recall that in the '60's time frame that there were incidents where the jato bottles had come loose, either by accident, or pulling the 'T' handles in the wrong order.... Weird things that come back to you ~50 yrs later... BUT don't ask me what I had for breakfast...
  7. In SEA '68-'69 &'70 at least, I used the vehicle off loading ramps for speed offloading pallets a lot... (as well as load/unload all kinds of vehicles, including APC's, off course...) & I do remember these ramps being stored in the door & they were HEAVY and could play heck with your fingers gettin them out of the door... (I'd have real trouble now at '66' moving them around...)...Anyways, when we anticipated speed off loading, or, we had vehicles on board I would leave the ramps hooked up to the ramp standin tall and run a tie down strap around them...Depending on the stops, I usually pulled them out of the door before leaving CRB on the days'(or nite's) shuttle... Sometimes, I would use them on pax runs, depending on how much baggage was going on the ramp & Medi-Vac always (tho, with KIAs, when pickin them up I'd use the ramps but the Mortuary Guys at Danang for the Marines came out with an 'ambulance' jeep usually & CRB, for Army w/ a 6X; then the ramps got in the way...) ...I kinda found the ramps to be kinda multi-purpose... (esp for speed off loading!)... Kinda like the Wood Chocks!)....Then, there were the married pallets and just a RT forklift...They went on easy....
  8. On my very last mission in USAF...Picking up VP Agnew's ground power unit & mule from the island of Bali where spiro T. stopped for a round of golf on his way to japan....AC picked up a complete set of hand carved & hand painted Wooden (monkey wood maybe...) little childrens chair and table furniture set that while we were climbing out on our way out of Bali to Australia (Canberra?) the table & chairs began to show cracks in the wood...Had one upset Bird Col AC...(We were on Bali for over a week with leaking fuel tanks)... Remember getting a wooden case of Rose Mateus Wine @ Lajes & we entered USA in Miami & the Nav said that customs was going to walk thru the plane...We hid the Rose Mateus in the Chain lockers and up in the ramp...I was all of 18 and never did that again! Customs did meet us on the ramp too...but just stuck their head in the cargo compartment (we were empty...)
  9. Chuck

    Viet A

    I find it really "unique" that The Socialist Republic of Viet Nam displayed the Herk at Khe Sanh...Khe Sanh was suppose to be Our Dien Bien Phu...With C130s, C123s & helicopters providing ALL of the resupply to the Marines during the siege of Khe Sanh (~mid/late dec '67 thru ~earlyapr '68)....after the Marine 130 crashed on the runway only 123's were allowed to land. 130s' airdropped CDS (I only air landed and then air dropped CDS during the actual siege; don't recall any LAPES (before 1528) or GPES (A models only) right during the actual siege beginning the week before TET '68...The NVA, with ample support from the American Media (sorry), really thought that they could overrun Khe Sanh and drive us right out of the country during TET that started 30 Jan '68...BUT it was the Marines (outgunned at least ten to one...) Being Air Suppled beans & bullets by C130s' (with able help from 123's & chinooks..) that held Khe Sanh and, then, the NVA suddenly, & almost overnight, pulled out of the mountains around Khe Sanh. I think partially because, I believe that the 101st airborne (& the Air Cav) were on their way in to relieve the Marines at Khe Sanh, Then in April '68, after the NVA was totally driven off, Westmoreland (&LBJ) abandoned Khe Sanh (we went back in & re-opened the base '70-'71`) for whatever reason (mindless)...The Vietnamese could have displayed the 130 at Kham Duc, for instance, where we lost 130s' during an evacuation of the FOB, but they chose Khe Sanh; I find that VERY interesting...I got a kick out of the blurb under the A model picture about the "atmospheric experience" Ha! They should have air-landed in there (or Dong Ha or Quang Tri...) in the middle of the night...They are three of the eeriest places I ever went into over there... As far as where Vietnam is today vs April 1975 (& North Vietnam from 1945...) Most of our Wind Turbine blades in the USA are from VietNam...My grandsons' "Happy Meal" toy came from VietNam...Why is VietNam slowly, but surely, moving away from communism... What part did the VietNam War play in this eventual transformation...Was it really all in vain...
  10. Chuck

    Cyanide

    Maybe he said it tongue in cheek...weren't the F105's known as the Lead Sled? Then again, if He Was flying in SEA, the Hanoi Hilton was NOT a five star Hilton and ending up a POW was pretty close to a toss up vs the "alternative"...
  11. All of our E's in the 346th had the paratroop door ladders on board....don't think that I ever used them, tho...In Country we loaded pax thru the ramp unless there were just a few and then we would "escort" them in/out the crew door... I remember on scheduled Pax runs picking up G I's at forward bases that were going back to the world (we only took em as far as CRB, TSN or Danang, of course...) would load them thru the ramp and then put their luggage pallet up on the ramp and I can remember the guys lookin at me while CRANKED the tie down straps squishing all of their Brandee New Samsonite Suit Cases all out of shape! NOBODY had the Samsonite luggage goin in country, But, they all seemed to have a set goin out back to the World. I always wondered who was sellin that Samsonite hard case luggage over their in the Jungle? Probably LBJ or Lady Bird...
  12. I was (Loadmaster) LAPES cerified at Dyess (346th) in '67 with the original reefed extraction chutes only...Then in winter of '68-'69 I TDY'd to Floridia (Eglin, I think) and got certified on 1528 LAPES before pcsing with the 346th to CCK...A huge difference between the original LAPES and 1528 LAPES. My AC was Std Eval and we almost lost the ramp not once, but twice, during the week that we were there...All worked out in the end tho...Dropped all kinds of the "legacy" CDS, both while in SEA jan to june'68 and Apr'69 to june'70... No LAPES tho...
  13. I guess it would depend on how much American history means to All Americans (both Young & Old...)...Specifically, Credible Sport is a part of our history that very few Americans have a clue about: Operation Eagleclaw...If Credible Sport had been viable there would not have been a Desert One and the loss of 8 Americans while trying to save the 60 or so American Hostages may not have happened...I believe Credible Sport was to land at the Soccer Field much closer to where the American Hostages where being held, at least at one point...I think that it's a sad state of affairs that Credible Sport is sitting rusting in a field someplace... Just ask most anyone what Desert One was...Most people think that it's something that happened during the first Iraq war...Sad isn't it...
  14. Armored Chair that came along with hardening the flight deck. The Armored Loadmaster's Chair" bolted down pretty much over the top of the 463 sequential lock and emergency release control for the dual rails.If I remember right, they added the flight deck armor sometime after Tet 68 as the armor weren't in any of the planes I was on during Tet and They must have pulled the Armored chair out after August 1970 as the armored chair was still there when I came back to the states from the 346th...I would have liked an Armored Paratroop door tho, as that's where I spent most of my time...
  15. In SEA I almost always had 5 empty pallets on the ramp...Still can't come up with a spot in my mind as to where I would've stowed one of those wooden milk stools (worked fine when they were available, but, I sure would not have wanted to lug it around the aircraft...). I know, maybe in the armored loadmasters' chair @ 245...(I'd most likely sit in it now...but, never did then, once they showed up, in `68-69? I do remember having to add, what~1,000 lbs for flight deck armor and our chair, when they did install it...I do remember sitting, from time to time, on a tie down chain barrel on top of my flak vest, that some of CC's had up by 245, but that was only because my flak vest didn't cover considered THEN, the most important part of my body...
  16. Hmmm. I used a wheel chock in SEA; and, more than once...Now, where are they going to store it on board? Wheel chocks were a big enough pain to stow when you had a full cargo floor...Also, as Sam said, in SEA, any place that had a fork lift had a adaquate field fabricated ramp stool. If they didn't have a fork lift, we speed offloaded, anyways; didn't need a milk stool for that, just the ramps. I would just leave the ramps hooked up/standin up and secured with a tie down strap...
  17. That was 30 Jan,68 (or, thereabouts, for Tet...) that the 346th went from the mildenhall rotation early and over to Clark and we came back mid-may, or, there abouts...
  18. gizzard, DRUGS. If you were coming off Bangkok shuttle, the MP's had connections downtown with the "local" drug sellers. We had a (~about all of 19 yrs old at the time...) LM in the 346th that got caught twice in late '69 or early '70: Before he even took off from Don Muang right on the tarmac by the MP's. The Army cops just took the weed back downtown Bangkok to the local for the next sucker...He wanted to extend at CCK in the worst way! So, they finally cured him by telling him if he did it again, that they would send him back to the States immediately! It worked...(it would have worked on me too, in '68, over there for Tet, but, I would have been on the first plane back in '70...(the difference being single and carefree, vs. married and a little one, I guess (& Walter Cronkite...)...I would go back in a heart beat now tho... if I could...They really should let us old guys do the fighting...
  19. Chuck

    A Model

    What was it: You could tell an A Model loadmaster by the screwdriver sticking out of his flight suit...to close the GTC door...Did they end up removing the door in SEA at some point? There was another saying...something about on takeoff from Naha, SOP with the A make a right turn on departure and end up in the drink...something like that anyways...Anyways, all versions of the 130 are first class and probably the best transport that the Air Force ever invested in right up to present day Even the J with the 6 bladed fans (tho, at some point, in combat, they will miss the FE and, even the Nav...) and finally some -30s' in AF inventory, tho, we usually grossed out on weight before we maxed out on cube...My pilots (E guys) allways said that the A model was a lot closer to flying a high performance plane the the B or E ever could be...
  20. 346th in '68 for Tet out of Clark and '69-'70 out of CCK before going incountry for CRB or Don Muang shuttles, Life Support issued each of us a snub nosed 38 (no holster, so, I kept in my air mask bag) w/ a small box of bullets (that were counted and recorded) and a Flak Vest (which @ 19 yrs old I sat on...) and one crew M16 which the Nav usually kept up at his table.We figured the M16 would come in handy if we were hijacked to North Viet Nam... Of course, it would probably have end our flight abruptly if fired, but allready in '68 we had prisoners in North Viet Nam for more than 3 years and their treatment at the hands of the NVA and the Cong was pretty well known; So, I don't think anybody wanted to be taken alive...Kinda makes one wonder what all the recent domestic noise has been about POW treatment...
  21. We went down a few times early in the morning and took out the sailfish sail boats that they had there...don't remember much as we were drunk when we did it...sure do remember the jelly fish and the submerged barbed wire tho...
  22. Gosh, Wasn't bunch a sevens nicknamed "Arnold Ziffel" from the green acres show ~69. If it wasn't bunch a sevens, which CCK bird was it? I seem to remember that the Crew Chief had "Arnold Ziffel" written on the edge of the ramp...I never saw Arnold Ziffel of the TV show as I was at CCK all during that time...
  23. Chuck

    62-1788

    I thought that in ~68 (after May, when we came back to Dyess from TDY to SEA/Clark) that we adsorbed a complete Mac squadron (all their planes, crew & maintainers) from McGuire and it became the 348th?
  24. There were warrant officer Navy/Marine C130 pilots during Vietnam: '66 to '70 anyways...I don't know how many? no where near the number of Army warrants flying helos...
  25. Ah! The "Ball Float" Test! Well known part of Col Watson's (346th @ Dyess circa '66) crew briefing before heading off to the moire exotic areas of the world! Those were the days!
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