C-130-E Airborne at DaNang

Beautiful site as C-130-E goes airborne on a hot sunny day at DaNang Airbase in Vietnam - 1972. Notice that the main landing gear already almost fully retracted, and the nose gear in transient with the nose gear doors still open ... copilot hot on the landing gear level. Getting landing gear retracted quickly important on takeoff with heavy loads in order to reduce drag and allow for much improved climb performance. For C-130 tail number followers I think this is 63-811. Typical low wooden airbase structures line the far side of the runway as the photo taken from the main parking ramp.

Stop and Shop Taiwan Style 1972

I think these are a few shops that lined the short stretch of main road leading from CCK Airbase (home of C-130s) to downtown Taichung, Taiwan - 1972. No autos but the usual assortment of bikes, mopeds, motorcycles, animal and tractor drawn carts. Men appear to be muscling around large sacks ... probably rice.

Butcher at Open Air Market South East Asia

Photo of butcher hard at work in open-air market ... could be Vietnam, Taiwan, or Indonesia - 1972. Not sure if it was luck or built-up tolerance, but my Western stomach never suffered I'll effects of "don't drink the water or eat the food" adventures in SEA ... overdoing alcohol not to be considered in that statement. Never much sign of refrigeration at these markets ... get there early before midday heat. Also interesting to note cutting board appears to be a section of a tree trunk ... very "green" in today's world I think. Looks like butcher had three piles for separation of carved meat ... the "good stuff" on the right, fatty meat on the middle tray, and all fat in the left tray and bowl. The hanging sausage may be end product of the middle tray. Off to the right out of frame was a sausage machine that would be a health inspectors nightmare. However, all things considered a blessing to have access to food in relative abundance.

Diego Garcia Atoll Indian Ocean

Final approach into middle-of-nowhere runway squeezed onto tiny island of Diego Garcia ... a C-130 resupply mission in 1972. Diego is a tropical footprint shaped coral atoll in middle of Indian Ocean … 1,200 to 1,800 miles from any major landmasses. Geologically these atolls (ring shaped islands with central lagoons) trace their origins to sinking volcanic islands that have submerged … coral growth keeping pace at sea level with that process. Until early 1970’s Diego consisted largely  of coconut plantations. Since then it has been used primarily by US Navy for submarine support , and other communications based functions.

Laotian and Vietnamese Leaflets

Pictured are Laotian and Vietnamese leaflets from early 1970s contributed by CCK C-130 Crew Chief Jack Braine (also pictured here). Jack said ... "attached are both sides of the leaflets. I had them checked out and the one in Vietnamese is a surrender and safe conduct pass. The other one with the pictures is Laotian and is a recruitment leaflet. I snagged that one off an E-Flight aircraft."
I recall flying a few C-130-E leaflet drops ... we called them "bullsh*t bomber" missions. We would fly a series of parallel racetrack patterns at altitude. At predetermined intervals crewmembers in the cargo area of C-130 would toss a box of leaflets out the open rear cargo doors. The cardboard box would explode in the airstream, raining down thousands of leaflets. Pallets in rear of plane contains many, many, many of these leaflet boxes. The boys in the back were harnessed to the plane to avoid taking an quick, unplanned ride to the ground through the open doors.

U2 at Utapao, Thailand

1.   This attached photo is compliments of Jack Braine, one of many terrific USAF C-130 crew chiefs out of CCK Taiwan who spent many tours at Vietnam and Thailand airbases keeping the Herky’s humming and looking good. Here Jack captured a Lockheed U2 high altitude recon aircraft taxiing with small outboard wing training wheels (pogos) at Utapao Airbase, Thailand – 1971. The U2 single engine jet design incorporated very long glider-like wings giving it a huge weight-to-lift ratio allowing climbs to 70,000 feet so as to avoid ground air defenses. The aircraft could takeoff in a very short distance at 70 mph … the combo of oversized wings and powerful jet engine allowed it to climb near vertical once airborne. The U2 had only two centerline landing gear to save weight … the out-rigged pogos would fall off the plane after takeoff. Upon landing (and without the pogos) when speed decreased, one of the long wings would drop to the ground protected by a small skid on the wing tips. The design also made the U2 extremely difficult to fly, and had a stall speed only 5-10 mph below its maximum speed at high altitude. Landing was very difficult as the wings had to be fully stalled to touch down given ground effect. During landing souped up, high speed chase vehicles (El Camino for one) driven by another U2 pilot would help guide the aircraft to a safe touchdown calling out height above ground over the radio.