C-130-E proud tails
Three proud tails of C-130-E aircraft in protective revetments at Tan Son Nhut Airbase Vietnam – 1972. The “C” and “E” around the “130” meant the plane had a “Cargo” configuration and was an “E-model” respectively … “A-models” were oldest and the model Letter was incremented to note improved/different versions of the plane. E models dominated this era. The large letters on the tails indicated airbase of origin … the planes were repurposed to Vietnam from US installations … in photo “LK” was Little Rock AFB, AK, and “DY” was Dyess AFB, TX. The smaller numbers on the tails (obscured in this photo) indicated year of manufacture; the larger numbers the last three digits of the serial number. C-130 flight crews generally always flew together but not on any particular C-130 aircraft, whereas crew chiefs were attached to specific airframes.
Nice picture of one of the Little Rock planes. I was one of the Avionics Maintenance guys that island hopped across the pacific on a C-130 from Little Rock AFB to Tan Son Nhut. Most of the maintenance guys stayed at CCK but some of us that were trained on the AWADS equipment spent the summer of 1972 at Tan Son Nhut.
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