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Aviation History
1967
1967 - 0060.PDF
Left: the FAC takes a close look at the target area before descending to put one smoke marker in. Right: the marker makes a quite] distinctive, very white, plume IN-COUNTRY STRIKE ... 5001b low-drag bombs—called slicks. Outboard of these were two 355 US gal drop tanks and further outboard still two 7501b napalm bombs. In the -Ds, four 20mm cannon; in the two-seat -F only two. Personal equipment was an anti-g corset donned over flying overalls, and a mesh survival jacket with several lumpy pockets, containing survival beacon, strobe light, heliograph mirror and mini-flares. Against each pilot's right thigh dangled a loaded, ready Colt 0.38, a very common piece of dresswear in Vietnam. On eaoh back, a parachute. The sky lightened as we sat in the aircraft, waiting for start- engine time. In the headset the US forces radio news—the latest on Rhodesia and Francis Chichester's epic welcome in Sydney, NSW. Then some pops—turn it off. In the pale dawn the Dragonship landed, its night's vigil done. The last mortar flare to punctuate the darkness burst, shone briefly, and died. The sun was up when we began to move, past F-102s on air defence alert. One of the -Ds reported that he would have to abort—a hydraulic leak in his airbrake line. The mission was still on—a deux. We turned on to the runway at 0711, took station to port and behind the leader. His afterburner exploded and shot him forward with a gout of flame. Fifteen seconds later ours did the same and we were hareing after him, rotating, lifting off and settling into a short 200kt climb. We closed with the leader at 33Okt IAS and 1,000ft, joining up well before the rendezvous point. We passed beneath him, visually checking that all was well with his underwing array and then he visually checked our stores. He passed over us and we tucked in to his port wing. We were flying over flat country, paddy fields studded with copses and small villages, the whole broken up by rivers of snaky sinuousness. At 0720, six minutes after take-off, we were making a wide orbit around the rendezvous at 2,600ft. We continued circling, climbed to 4,000ft, skimmed the top of some very light cloud. Aloft in his tiny Bird Dog, making 90kt or so, was the FAC, with Flight's photographer enjoying the panoramic nature of the glasshouse with its fully opening windows, and trying hard not to think of the vulnerability to gunfire from the ground. At 0727 the FAC—Cider 36—called up. We were Ramrod 21. What was this? Briefed to attack a target 22 miles SSW of Bien Hoa and he was giving a new direction of 310° for 40 miles from the airfield? Navigation was the leader's prob- lem, Tacan the aid, and we would tail along. "That's up towards the mountains, near War Zone C," my pilot said. The "war zones" are the Viet Cong strongholds where "Charlie" has been entrenched for years and to which he falls back from other skirmishes. They are his storehouses and his sanctuaries, and in the war zones parachutees are assured of an unfriendly reception. At 0730 we were making 32Okt IAS on course for the target at 6,700ft—well beyond the lethal range of anything which Charlie has upon the ground in South Vietnam. JPT was 450°C. "The target is a rice storage area and suspected headquarters area." It was the FAC calling us again. "They've had some radio transmissions out of it recently." (These are monitored and fixed by specially equipped US Army Bird Dogs, among other means, while South Vietnamese Army intelligence is also well switched on.) "The surface wind is five to ten knots, terrain 50ft. Trees 100ft. Five miles to the north-west are hills to 500ft. Nearest friendlies are 10 clicks (kilometres) south. This is your nearest bale-out area. I'll be holding off to the east." The leader acknowledged and passed to the FAC details of the stores we bore. Ahead of us, from a completely flat plain, in magnificent isolation, rose a perfectly conical hill to over 3,000ft. Tay Ninh Mountain—quite incredible and a surefire tourist attrac- tion, but tourists—that kind of tourist—don't come. The FAC called up again. "I'm 15 miles due east of you, just west of a little group of hills running north to south, flying at 2,000ft." A little later, the leadship: "I have a tally on you." "You're at 12 o'clock" said the FAC. I attempted to follow the R/T patter and looked hard around, but could no! see the Bird Dog. The sun was washing everything in a beauti- ful autumnal gold; light cloud cover at about 3,500ft removed any harshness from its glare. The land beneath us was in The Cessna O-IF Bird Dog used for USAF FAC duties in South Vietnam. Normal cruising speed is 90kt. Some 0-1 Fs have recently been fitted with a machine gun on a traversing mount on the port side and swung by the pilot, to return ground fire—quite a Mini-Dragonship. On this occasion an M.I6 automatic rifle and the pilot's side-arm were carried for self-defence if the aircraft was shot down. Four smoke rockets ore carried on underwing racks
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