lmagna

I am sure the price is not out of hand for this book. It looks to be in excellent condition but it always irritates me that these sellers charge a full price of hundreds, even thousands of dollars and still feel the need to add full or even more postage costs!

In my case it gets twisted just in the short distance between memory/brain and fingers/mouth. It seems like I have no need for outside help to mess up a story in one detail or another. The things I seem to be having the most trouble with lately is not so much what happened but where and when! Two of the "can no longer remember with true accuracy where" incidents are when I was in a commercial airliner landing on a very short runway. I remember looking down from the window and thinking that the runway looked really small. we circled the runway one complete time and then came down in what seemed to be a really steep decent and then I swear I watched the reverse deflector clamshells on the inboard engines deploy and reverse thrust being applied BEFORE our wheels were on the ground! they did the same to the outboard engines as soon as we felt the wheels touch and really leaned on the throttles! It was possibly one of the most exciting landing I have ever watched. FOR the life of me I cannot remember when or what field it was. The other incident involved Air Force One, or whatever they call it when the President is not on board. It could have been Tan Son Nhut, Pleiku, or Da Nang, I just can't remember which. At any rate there had been incidents of VC taking pot shots at approaching and departing aircraft from the approaches to the airfield and it was advised for all aircraft to gain as much altitude as possible when leaving the runway. One of the Air Force whatever they called it, (White and blue with "United States Of America" plastered along the side) was there and we watched it take off. First off they opened the hanger and rolled the aircraft out at what looked to be 30 or 40 miles an hour heading straight for the end of the runway. They rotated around at the end of the runway and without even stopping to rev up the engines started their takeoff! That alone was amazing to watch, but it seemed they rotated and were airborne before they had used even half the runway. The nose came up, the gear came up. and they looked like a fighter climbing out and were gone through the clouds in no time. Obviously no problems with power with that plane!

I don't know about extra ammo. We left all of the 7.62 stuff with the guns and chopper, along with the M-16 that I had strapped to the bulkhead in my position in the right gunner bay. The only firearms we had were sidearms. I carried two extra mags on my belt and I think every one else did as well. At any rate the MPs didn't make a big deal about it. I suspect they dealt with it relatively often. after those two stops we were left alone fro the rest of the day and outside of the BX incident didn't have any more issues. We just thought it odd that they would say anything at all. After all, as far as we knew we were still in Nam and the whole darn place was considered a combat zone.

It is when you try and show others. Sometimes when I look at my remaining pictures from that time I wonder why I even took them, even more why I kept them.

I found a couple of pictures from the trip I described above. They were probably not that good to begin with, (Picture taking is not my forte) and are not getting any better with age but they are all I have. The first picture from the air is the best out of trying half a dozen times to get it to focus right. Normally my wife's camera does a little better than that. He still had to haul his own bags though.

I can believe that! We flew a guy out for emergency leave to Da Nang airbase once and not only was it a different world for us in so many ways it was an experience that has lasted in memory. First off, the airbase was a beehive of activity. Planes and helicopters of all sorts were coming and going from what seemed to be all directions, in what seemed to be total chaos. I remember us coming in at right angles to the runway and getting clearance from the tower to cross over the runway to get to our landing area. We got a rather curt clearance and almost in the same breath could hear the tower guy giving clearance to some airliner on final approach to go ahead and land on the runway we were crossing! It was a hole different world than what we were used to in our relatively little crop duster type of field. We dropped the guy off and found a place to park because no GI would dare go to an Air Force base without a shopping list. Their BX's were things of legend in our world. So we went out and spent quite some time filling our shopping list but to our surprise found that they also had restaurant type places where you could order American type food. There was even a theater that showed movies. I think the sign said 25 cents! The only problem we ran into was that we were all armed with .45 autos. Daily attire for us and we seldom thought much about it. We were stopped twice by the MPs while walking and questioned, and when we wanted to go into the BX one of us had to stay outside and hold all of the pistols for those who went in looking like some kind of Mexican bandito! Like I said a whole other world. But what Ken's comment made me recall was when we went to leave we were hovering at the edge of the runway waiting for departing traffic so we could cross over it again on our way out. First a C-130 flew by and was probably 30-40 feet off of the runway by the time it crossed in front of us. It was a little like watching an airshow. Then two F-4s went by on full afterburner, at least I assume it was, with their rear wheels still on the runway but noses up with flames almost as long as the plane coming out of the exhaust and bouncing off of the runway! It was getting late in the afternoon and it was pretty spectacular to say the least. Even to this day the memory just says "POWER" to my mind! I don't know about feeling better Mike, but I am pretty much convinced that there are not going to be any 1/700 ships in my future any time soon based on what you are showing. I considered it, (Fleetingly) when I was looking at options for building the USS Houston of WWII. Luckily I found one in 1/350. It still has some insanely small PE, but at least it is stuff that goes onto the ship, not PART OF the ship! Thanks John As for the memories. That is at least half of what this particular build is all about. It is a trip back 50 years to what we were all doing. What were you doing fifty years ago, 1970? (+-)?

That part I remember well. Most of us were enamored by these tall women with different colored hair that actually spoke real English, well American anyway. Outside of a few Donut Dollies and possibly nurses, which after all were also officers, we had been almost a year without "normal" contact with the opposite sex. For the whole trip it was Thank you mam, yes mam, no mam. They returned the favor by being quite kind and attentive to us. No booze was served like in a regular flight, but they made certain we had as much of anything else that was on the plane even if we didn't ask for it.

Loach's and some B models had hanging gun lanyards and used a conventional M-60 gun hand held. The D and H series of Hueys I flew in had the M-23 mount. That used the modified M-60D Some ships used other mounts and systems. I think there was a lot of experimentation going on at the time. You have to remember that using helicopters in a combat role was a very new and untried concept at the time.

There was really plenty of room. there was a bunch of room under the jump seats that even had tie downs. BUT...... unlike the monster you flew in, weight was always an issue! On some hot days we could not even hover above ground effect with the loads we needed to carry. The pilot would have to get the chopper just high enough to clear the skids and give forward cyclic and we would be able to climb like a conventional fixed wing as our forward speed increased. The D model had a bigger engine and rotor than the B but it also had a bigger fuselage and larger cargo compartment. The H had a bigger engine yet but even they had days of difficulty in Nam. I never flew in the N models but with two engines I suspect they may have at last beaten the power issue. Of course all new helicopters have wheels so they can taxi like real planes and that can help with both takeoff and landings when the bird is heavy. I couldn't remember where we landed on the way home when I wrote the above. But you keyed it a little. I know we landed in Okinawa, I remember now how shocked I was at how small it looked from the air. We also landed at Guam for some reason. we were not allowed off on either location. Maybe it was Guam that was small?????? Like Ken said it was all a blur and time has not sharpened anything.

Oh...........Man of mystery now!

Yes that should hide a lot of the bad stuff! But that won't be for a while yet, still a lot to be installed/painted/and built. Knowing me and my results so far it will be a steady trudge of one step forward and three back at every turn!

That flight was one of the longest of my life. That plane was what we called a "Freedom Bird" It was loaded to the brim with Gi's coming home after 11 months in combat. The mood started out high, especially after the guys saw the stewardesses they supplied us with. I think most of the guys considered them more like Goddesses. But in this particular flight we hopped from one location to another all of the way across the Pacific. The only one we were allowed to get off on was Oahu Hawaii, where we got off to change planes. WE arrived in Oakland California sometime in the early dusk boarded a bus and went to the processing center too late to do any processing. The next morning I was a civilian! Possibly the largest cultural shock of my life.

Well a short update. It feels strange to have any progress to report so soon after the last report. I filled in the excess holes in the deck like suggested and then proceeded to make more, that mostly will also probably have to be filled in later. I assembled the rear jump seats and gunner seats. I then placed them into their proper locations. The test fit looked OK as first glance so I went ahead and painted them. Big mistake! They immediately assumed a different shape or something and refused to be usable in the locations that they seemed fine in prior to painting! So after taking the following pictures I went to a different method of installing the seats that is totally different than what I used on the forward jump seat! Today I hope to get some time to alter the seats and install them. I will of course need to make some more repairs to the deck and then will be pretty much done with the basic cabin area. I will be adding pilot controls and delicate stuff like that at the last minute so that hopefully they won't be broken. After that, it is back into new territory for me. People painting! Another area that I have never tried in model building, at least not figures that were meant to be looked at from close quarters.

That has to be one of the advantages of having your own long range aircraft. Getting something home that would be hard any other way. I once met a guy who was in K-9 and was devastated when the military made him leave his dog in Vietnam. He NEVER forgave the powers that be on that.

I think that those guys had a short life expectancy anyway from the time they were launched to the time they almost reached the ground! I don't remember any of them being able to parachute by the next day. I did have one guy who gave his all in a high altitude balloon flight though. His chute was long gone but I found him in the toy box and he was attached to the string of a helium party balloon and sent aloft.

I think the whole thing not only got pretty blurry at the end with all that was going on. Maintaining flight duties, processing out, turning stuff in, and a blur of other things. Not too many drunken parties as I was still on flight status but I do vaguely remember some Rum and Coke episodes in the hooch after dinner. The last couple of weeks were a whirlwind of events and emotions that ended here:

When I grow up I want to be able to do the stuff you can do Craig. Fantastic work as always. I'm jealous and I am secretly cooking up a potion on my slightly used camp stove to steal your talent somehow. Now all I need to do is get it to you and make you drink it!

Yeah, you learn early on that you need to keep a firm grip. I'm surprised that the parachute held up long enough to pull the poor guy out of your hands! The ones I was able to get were so flimsy that they would barely hold up to being thrown up in the air. Some of them even came with a stick and rubber band to launch them even higher. They lasted even less time. Either the chute ripped at the string connections or they ended up on the roof of the house.😫

The only place you need to worry about is the little hole you will be able to find on the positive end of the battery pack. If it is open and any gasses have the ability to escape, remember my friends boat was a sub and it was mostly sealed up ready to go when it blew. If your vent is open and the top of the duck is off you should be good to go on charging, even fast charging. I agree, yachting has a pleasure all its own. For some reason just sailing about and getting the right trim is enjoyable even though you are really just going back and forth pretty much aimlessly. I have always wondered if glider guys feel the same way when they fly?

What is it with company mascots? We had a dog we called Major, even had rank on his collar. He was always there when you came back from a flight and seemed to love everyone who was in a uniform. But with the exception of most of the Mama San and Papa San's in the company area HATED native people. Many called them "Gooks" back then. He would go into battle mode, all fangs and growls if approached by one. I never knew if it was smell or something else that triggered him but he never failed to let one get close to him but had no problems with any new GI who arrived or was there on business. I don't know what happened to him when we pulled out a few years later. As a dog that was born in Vietnam there is little chance he was allowed to go to the US with his company. I hope he found a good home.

Never heard of OMGIF. Had to look it up. But a few guys got a FIGMO attitude, not very many. The last thing you wanted was getting your tour extended for some unknown reason. We did have an expression even when we first cam in country. "What are they going to do? Send me to Vietnam?" it was only half a joke. I never made a countdown calendar, but the last week or so it was not easy not to brag that you were single digit, (Number of days) and a wakeup. By that time you were normally taken off of known combat flight status anyway and assigned to milk runs. Too many things happened to people when they got real short and it was considered bad luck to push it if you didn't have to. If nothing else, the people on the flight line were pretty superstitious.

Sometimes I wish I had. I was shocked at my reaction.

I have seen people do that. I have never decided if I would like to or not. It is not really the time or the money, I have enough of both if needed. The area I was stationed was not really a tourist attraction in the first place, and probably mostly everything has been erased of our presence there. I think Part of my reluctance stems from the fear of really seeing how fleeting and possibly useless our time there really was, bringing credibility to what was happening by the Jane Fonda types here in the states and further discredit to our time there. The other side of me would like to show my wife and to a lesser extent my kids where it all happened and why it can't really be explained. I was able to go to the Vietnam wall in DC a few years ago, and pointed out a few names to my wife. It was clear that she still didn't understand when she said she had never seen me that way before.

That is not how you do it OC. You hold it outside the side window of the car while driving at speed and watch the props madly spin and feel the lift of the wings! Made many a trip as a kid more enjoyable for me. I could do it for hours and by the time I came back to reality, we were there. I suppose it was the portable video game of my time.

I know the feeling. I still have many of the ships from my RC days but almost all of the radio gear would no longer be allowed.