FAC'ing in the Bronco

[Guest whyme?]

Nope, although the leadership was a little more strict up at Danang than ours was living on the Marine airbase at Chu Lai, we all generally rolled up our sleeves, pulled the zippers down to mid-chest, and didn't wear reflective belts. It was a different time, that's for sure.

Edit: Damn, junior's on my box again...

When did you have to wear reflective belts? im sure there is a lesson learned from a previous war that out current ticket punching leadership is drawing on for their regs? Did some on in a CSAR Helo miss a pickup cuz the pilot didnt have his reflective belt?

I loved going into OEF on an afternoon sortie with my stupid belt zipped into a pocket... I mean I couldnt leave the jet w/o it. Some SNCO would come charging across the flightline screaming at me<- I kid.

The standard 1/20 of an Air Medal. Twenty combat missions for an Air Medal in those days. It was just another mission.

thats still standard. 'cept the beans and bullet guys rack em up fast though.

Good stuff: although why is there always a highway 1?

Edited June 1, 2009 by whyme?

[HiFlyer]

When did you have to wear reflective belts?

Never...I was reflecting on the current state of affairs.

Good stuff: although why is there always a highway 1?

Gotta start somewhere, I guess

[scoobs]

HiFlyer -

I've been waiting awhile to mention this to a Vietnam era OV-10 pilot.

A few years ago I had a job flying resurrected and significantly modified former USMC D-models on a State Department contract in South America. "Significantly modified" means, among other things, that we had Kevlar floor and sidewall armor, front quarter panel armor, laminate windscreen and side canopy armor, etc.

We pretty frequently came back with several 7.62-ish sized holes in various parts of the aircraft, and I remember thinking this experience was highly overrated even with a lot of armor. I also remember, after getting shot off one target, having the very clear thought that those crazy bastards that flew this thing in Vietnam flew it unarmored, against guys packing 23 and 37mm heat, if not SA-7s. I can only assume the squadron had wheelbarrows outside the chute shop so you guys could haul your gigantic balls out to the aircraft.

P.S. More stories, por favor.

Isn't that a tough job to get?

[60 driver]

Isn't that a tough job to get?

I met approximately zero of their major hiring requirements, but I got the job because they were looking for A-10 guys at the time (for a program that never materialized).

Better lucky than good.

That's enough from me, I don't want to distract from Hiflyer's stories. More if you got 'em Hiflyer!

Edited June 2, 2009 by 60 driver

[HiFlyer]

More wartime tomfoolery...

When I initially arrived at Chu Lai in Sep 1969, I checked in with my unit and got settled in my quarters (the usual "SEAhut"...a 16x24 plywood hooch with walls of plywood and wire sceen, and a corregated metal roof), the walked over to the "officers club" to see what was going on. I was amazed to find a guy that I went to Jr and Sr high school with (Clyde), who was now an Army Captain and the Ops Officer for an Army helicopter company at Chu Lai (flying CH-47s). We re-engaged over the next few weeks and began to hang out a little. He took me along with him when I was not on duty, and I got a little stick time in the CH-47 as well as going with them on some of their resupply operations. It was fun and very educational for me. The other contingent I ran into was a group of Red Cross "Donut Dollies" and a couple of female Army Special Services girls who lived in hooches across the street from us and ran some programs on the Americal main compound at Chu Lai (Chu Lai was home to the Americal Division HQ as well as the Marine MAG 12 (A-4) and MAG 13 (F-4) aviation units). After a month or so I was quietly approached by Clyde and asked whether I wanted to go on a "special supply run" on the coming Sunday. I said sure, and was told to keep it quiet, dress for a beach party, and bring what I could find for refreshments. On Sunday I showed up with some beer and wine at the appointed time and place (at a lightly used pad near the supply dump at the south end of the old aluminium runway at Chu Lai)) and discovered about ten of the girls, several other guys from Clyde's unit, and a few crates of "supplies"...some looking legit, some resembling coolers of beer and soda on ice. A few minutes later Clyde arrived with a CH-47. We quickly loaded up and departed out over the South China Sea. It turns out that about 15 miles off the coast was a small island called "Cu La Rae Island" (although my spelling is probably not too accurate at this point), which had a small Vietnamese Navy lighthouse station, and a small fishing village, along with two spectacular white sand beaches on the north and south sides of the island. We off-loaded the supplies with the lighthouse guys (two local navy Petty Officers and their families) and then set up shop on the north beach next to the village (predominent winds from the south made the north beach nicer, although it was only short walk to the other side at that point on the island if the winds changed). The island was virtually removed from the war, and resembled a poster from a vacation advertisement. The people were very friendly; we bought fish and crab from them, "donated" some extra rice, sugar, salt, cooking oil, etc. and they cooked the food for us while we spend the afternoon on the beach. It was incredible. About 1800 we packed up and flew back to Chu Lai. We did it again whenever the weather and supply schedule worked out...probably a half dozen trips during my tour.

Once, we even picked up a few nurses from the 91st Evacuation Hospital at Chu Lai...along with a water ski boat that the hospital people had sequestered away at their location. The 91st Evac was out on a little rocky point on the water between the old aluminium runway and the Americal HQ compound up on bluff to the north, and the commander had somehow acquired a small boat and outboard motor from somewhere (in Vietnam, stange things happened) and kept it in the cove below the hospital buildings. I believe it was used for "shoreline security", usually with a driver and two lookouts (one in the boat, one on water skis).

Again, war is hell...

[Wolf424]

Cù Lao Ré

I think these are pictures of it, looks like a great time...

http://afamily.channelvn.net/2009051404544...-vang-bien-xanh

[HiFlyer]

Cù Lao Ré

I think these are pictures of it, looks like a great time...

http://afamily.channelvn.net/2009051404544...-vang-bien-xanh

Some may be. Others look a little too tall and rugged, but there are several islands out there and I'm not sure at this time which one we landed on, except that it had a small airstrip at one end that we used. It was many years ago and times have changed for them as well, I'm sure.

[Guest whyme?]

I was just trying to extrapolate where the "outstanding" current leaders may have gotten their grand idea. Seeing the last war that you all fought so bravely they didn't need them. I guess that goes along with the pencil pushing ticket punchers with ZERO combat time making decisions for the guys that do.

[Guest boredwith9to5]

Great stories HiFlyer! Thanks for sharing

[Marjackson82]

Astonishing stories! Hiflyer, considering the level of details in your accounts, I assume you kept a journal, correct? Do you other guys keep journals or write stuff down as well? Must be cool to look back and read all the stuff you did.

[HiFlyer]

Astonishing stories! Hiflyer, considering the level of details in your accounts, I assume you kept a journal, correct? Do you other guys keep journals or write stuff down as well? Must be cool to look back and read all the stuff you did.

Actually, I don't have a journal (I wish I did), but to me some of the stuff is as clear in my mind today was it was 40 years ago. Ask a WWII vet from D-Day or Pearl Harbor if they've forgotten any of that. Unless they have medical issues with memory, I'll bet they haven't! Up until he passed away in 2006, my father-in-law, who was in Hawaii on Dec 7th, could still relate virtually everything that happened at Wheeler Field minute by minute. When you see all the Pearl Harbor movies and see the two P-40s that took off to attack the Japanese, he was one of about six P-40 mechanics at Wheeler that recovered the two P-40s from the deployment airfield, armed them and gassed them up, and launched them against the second wave. During the first wave he was sitting on the roof of his barracks shooting at them with a Lewis gun (old .30 cal machine gun) while his bunk buddy ran ammo from the locker in the basement (which they had to break into because the armory NCO wouldn't unlock it without a signed order from the commander! They punched him out, tied him up, and broke in with a fire ax). His third friend disappeared at the onset of the attack and they couldn't find him anywhere. After the attacks were over and they started searching, they found him up in the top of a big banyon tree...he was the first one out the door, about 30 seconds ahead of Paul and his buddy, and apparently a bomb went off next to him and blew him up in the air. He fell into the top of the tree and was lodged there (dead, of course). I visited Wheeler a few years ago and took pictures for him... the tree and barracks (now an admin building) are still there. Later in Europe (according to Paul), he had the distinction of being one of the few people to best Gen Patton in a one-on-one "discussion". He was a P-38 line chief for the 402nd FS and Patton showed up to personally oversee the confiscation of all the gas in their fuel dump so he could give it to his tanks. Paul cornered him and asked him which of the two armored regiments the 402nd was supporting (they were a CAS unit, not an air-to-air unit) should he call and tell that they weren't getting any more close air support courtesy of Gen Patton. Patton called him a dirty sniveling SOB, but let him keep half the gas. What Patton didn't know was that because he (Patton) had already been over to the other squadron first and the warning was given, Paul had managed to sneak one of his tankers out of the area and Patton's guys didn't know it was around, so Paul actually got half the gas in the dump plus another 4000 gallons in the hidden tank truck! He said the truck was more valuable than the gas...they would get access more gas in a few days, but without the tankers they couldn't store it.

What I do have is about a thousand 35mm slides (thats about 700 shots of triple-canopy jungle which apparently meant something to me at one time, and 300 that I still recognise), a few letters I wrote to my family and retrieved, and one old audio tape I recorded on a mission. Of course, if I was to try to recount many more war stories, the quality would begin to tail off dramatically, as most of the days weren't as memorable. I'm probably good for a couple more shorter stories, but the biggies are about used up.

Edited June 9, 2009 by HiFlyer

[Wolf424]

Actually, I don't have a journal (I wish I did), but to me of the stuff is as clear in my mind today was it was 40 years ago. Ask a WWII vet from D-Day or Pearl Harbor if they've forgotten any of that.

Funny that you say that, because my Grandfather likes to tell a couple stories from his days as a medic in France during WWII. He can even recall little details, like the names of guys he helped in the field, where they were from back home, etc.

[slacker]

which they had to break into because the armory NCO wouldn't unlock it without a signed order from the commander! They punched him out, tied him up, and broke in with a fire ax

See, there were shoe clerks back then too. Stupidity is not bound in reflective belts alone.

What I do have is about a thousand 35mm slides (thats about 700 shots of triple-canopy jungle which apparently meant something to me at one time, and 300 that I still recognise

My dad apparently has the same slide collection. When I was about 22 yrs old, he broke out the projector and we spent hours looking at slides and he told some great stories. It was the first time he ever told me anything about Vietnam.

[contraildash]

These stories are great! I kept a monthly (and still going) journal starting with OTS. Maybe someday down the road I'll have something exciting to talk about, I doubt it'll top the stories here though, you never know!

My old man was a helo pilot in the USCG for 25+ years. Didn't really talk about his early days till after he retired. I've gotten a few stories about flying a single engine helicopter out into the middle of a raging 'Nor Easter to rescue fishermen or pick up premature babies off Martha's Vinyard. Said he was just a scared sh*tless 26 year old LTJG and honestly thought on several occasions he wasn't coming home. This is back when the USCG's unwritten policy was "you have to go out...but you don't have to come back" for SAR.

As I got older I remember mornings he'd come home from standing duty, said they flew "a rough one last night" and off to bed he'd go. Then you see a story on the news later that day about the USCG picking up some roughneck in the gulf with a severe head injury who died enroute. I can understand why he didn't talk much about the things he did....if he got sent out it wasn't because things were going well for someone.

But on a more up beat note, the beer story was epic...that's stuff movies are made from (or should be) in my book!

HiFlyer...glad you are here to share your lil bit of history with us...thanks a lot!

[-Roll-]

I couldn't let a good thread like this die!

Are there anymore stories out there!?

[Steve Davies]

I couldn't let a good thread like this die!

Are there anymore stories out there!?

Indeed. A worthy thread revival.

More stories please, HF...

[HiFlyer]

Damn, I'm running out. Like police work, war is mostly boring. Well...there was the "Purple Heart" story. The latter part of my tour at Chu Lai we lived down on the beach across from our aircraft We had two "SEA-huts" (16x32 wood floored hootches with four foot plywood side walls topped with another 4 feet of screen, and a corregated metal roof) with a concrete patio between them. Given the occasional rocket or morter attack, and our thin-skinned huts buried in the pine trees which made the warheads tend to airbust above out roofs with significant frag effects (one...a 122mm rocket...went off above our hootch and sent frags thru the roof, thru our beds, and thru the floor. Had we been there, we'd have been in a world of hurt!). We decided it would be prudent to extend a small protective slit trench near the hootches to and under the concrete patio. With a few days of effort we did so, and provided space for about ten people with a little concrete overhead (about twelve feet wide by three feet under the patio and four inches thick on top). It was hard work because the sand was not easy to dig in nor maintain is a firmly shaped entrance, so when we finished the trenching we were beat, and elected to clear the approached at another time. As you might suspect, that kept getting put off, and scattered around the area between the hootch doors and the entrance were several small stumps from 2-3 inch pine trees we had cut down. Sure enough, several weeks later we got rocketed again and we all run for the trench. I managed to kick one of those stumps with my foot and landed in the trench on my head with a very badly stubbed toe (well, five of them, actually!). After the attack was over, we all went back to bed, but the next morning I woke up with my foot all black and blue and swollen up to the point I couldn't get my boot on. I had to stop flying for a few days. One of the nearby Navy corpsmen looked at my foot and decided there were no broken bones, then wrapped it up and gave me a cane to hobble around with (it really hurt!!). He then started to collect information for some paperwork, and I discovered it was for a possible Purple Heart submission for being wounded during an enemy attack (he was just being helpful, since it would have to be submitted by my AF chain, not the Marine chain). Two of my fellow pilots who drove me over to the aid station heard the discussion and were dying in fits of laughter, because they knew the real story. I could just imagine explaining to someone how I was wounded in the war... "I stubbed my toe while running for my life because I was too lazy to finish building a hole to hide in". Needless to say, I politely accepted the paperwork from the very nice corpsman, then trashed it when I got back to the hootch. It took months to live that down, not to mention explaining to the Squadron guys in Danang why one of the Det's pilots was medically grounded, but no paperwork was filed with the Flight Surgeon's office.

My one and only "war wound"...

[BQZip01]

Damn, I'm running out. Like police work, war is mostly boring. Well...there was the "Purple Heart" story. The latter part of my tour at Chu Lai we lived down on the beach across from our aircraft We had two "SEA-huts" (16x32 wood floored hootches with four foot plywood side walls topped with another 4 feet of screen, and a corregated metal roof) with a concrete patio between them. Given the occasional rocket or morter attack, and our thin-skinned huts buried in the pine trees which made the warheads tend to airbust above out roofs with significant frag effects (one...a 122mm rocket...went off above our hootch and sent frags thru the roof, thru our beds, and thru the floor. Had we been there, we'd have been in a world of hurt!). We decided it would be prudent to extend a small protective slit trench near the hootches to and under the concrete patio. With a few days of effort we did so, and provided space for about ten people with a little concrete overhead (about twelve feet wide by three feet under the patio and four inches thick on top). It was hard work because the sand was not easy to dig in nor maintain is a firmly shaped entrance, so when we finished the trenching we were beat, and elected to clear the approached at another time. As you might suspect, that kept getting put off, and scattered around the area between the hootch doors and the entrance were several small stumps from 2-3 inch pine trees we had cut down. Sure enough, several weeks later we got rocketed again and we all run for the trench. I managed to kick one of those stumps with my foot and landed in the trench on my head with a very badly stubbed toe (well, five of them, actually!). After the attack was over, we all went back to bed, but the next morning I woke up with my foot all black and blue and swollen up to the point I couldn't get my boot on. I had to stop flying for a few days. One of the nearby Navy corpsmen looked at my foot and decided there were no broken bones, then wrapped it up and gave me a cane to hobble around with (it really hurt!!). He then started to collect information for some paperwork, and I discovered it was for a possible Purple Heart submission for being wounded during an enemy attack (he was just being helpful, since it would have to be submitted by my AF chain, not the Marine chain). Two of my fellow pilots who drove me over to the aid station heard the discussion and were dying in fits of laughter, because they knew the real story. I could just imagine explaining to someone how I was wounded in the war... "I stubbed my toe while running for my life because I was too lazy to finish building a hole to hide in". Needless to say, I politely accepted the paperwork from the very nice corpsman, then trashed it when I got back to the hootch. It took months to live that down, not to mention explaining to the Squadron guys in Danang why one of the Det's pilots was medically grounded, but no paperwork was filed with the Flight Surgeon's office.

My one and only "war wound"...

Some of the awards we have are wide-scoped in nature and the Purple Heart is one of them that covers a LOT of ground. From the stubbing of the toe incident mentioned above to losing your life, our government has determined that they are all worthy of a decoration.

Personally, I would have filed the paperwork to get the medal just to prove how absurd it can be and then refuse to wear it.

[HiFlyer]

Some of the awards we have are wide-scoped in nature and the Purple Heart is one of them that covers a LOT of ground. From the stubbing of the toe incident mentioned above to losing your life, our government has determined that they are all worthy of a decoration.

Personally, I would have filed the paperwork to get the medal just to prove how absurd it can be and then refuse to wear it.

Well, I'm not into political statements now, and certainly wasn't in 1970. I respect the intent of the award too much to be offered for one because I stubbed my toe due to my own lazyness!

[tripilot]

This thread is great! Thanks for sharing HiFlyer. War stories are a nice break from bitching about bureaucracy and politics.

[BQZip01]

Well, I'm not into political statements now, and certainly wasn't in 1970. I respect the intent of the award too much to be offered for one because I stubbed my toe due to my own lazyness!

Hmm. Fair enough.

[tac airlifter]

Hiflyer, some questions on how you guys operated back then: Did you have daily sorties to known locations and fighters would rendezvous with you at predetermined times, or did you only launch for a TIC so you knew fast movers would be enroute? Were there several forward staging areas for FAC's so you'd be close to the action, or could you count on a lot of drone time to and from your destination? And if you can put up with all those questions, what kind of stations time did you have, or would you guys just go trolling for contact?

I'm really curious about the tactical implementation of FAC's in the old days without all the whiz bang shit used currently. Thanks!

[-Roll-]

This thread is great! Thanks for sharing HiFlyer. War stories are a nice break from bitching about bureaucracy and politics.

2

This stuff is gold man..

[Steve Davies]

My one and only "war wound"...

And a fine one it is!

[HiFlyer]

Hiflyer, some questions on how you guys operated back then: Did you have daily sorties to known locations and fighters would rendezvous with you at predetermined times, or did you only launch for a TIC so you knew fast movers would be enroute? Were there several forward staging areas for FAC's so you'd be close to the action, or could you count on a lot of drone time to and from your destination? And if you can put up with all those questions, what kind of stations time did you have, or would you guys just go trolling for contact?

I'm really curious about the tactical implementation of FAC's in the old days without all the whiz bang shit used currently. Thanks!

Well, organization-wise all the FACS belonged to the 504th Tac Air Support Gp which was located near Saigon (Bien Hoa AB or Tan Son Hut AB...I can't remember which). The group had four squadrons, three in country (19th 20th and 21st TASS) and one at Nakhon Phanom (NKP), Thailand (22nd TASS). The NKP guys only did out-country work on the "trail" and were not assigned as FACs to an army unit for CAS work (I'm not saying they might not have occasionally done some for other people, but they weren't assigned to a standard ground unit). Each of the in-country squadrons then had a detachment at their assigned ground units. I was a 20th TASS guy, with the squadron at Danang. The 20th TASS had OV-10s at Chu Lai AB, the HQ for the Americal Division (my unit). There were more OV-10s up at either Hue Phu Bai or Quang Tri airfield outside Hue, north of Danang, to support the 1st Cav. The 20th also had O-2s at several other locations (Danang, Tam Ky, and up at Hue somewhere) to support the ARVN and US Special Forces units. That way, each Army Division had a FAC unit co-located at or near its HQ, and an ALO permanently assigned to the Division, who also served as the location commander for all the unit's FACs. I was at Chu Lai, assigned to support the northern most Americal Bde...the 196th Inf Bde (Light). Chu Lai was the dividing line between the center and northern Bdes so we could support both from the same location, but the third Americal Bde (198th Inf Bde) was farther south at Quang Ngai, so we kept two or three OV-10s down there for quicker response.

First, you have to remember that this was the 60s and early seventies. It was largely a daytime war on our part, so we didn't worry too much about night time support for our grunts...the basic companies in the field pretty much hunkered down in the evening and didn't engage much. The OV-10 could fly about 3.5 hours on a mission when loaded for in-country CAS. That was four LAU-79 pods with seven 2.75" rockets each (two white phosphorus (willie pete) pods and two HE pods) and four M-60 (7.62mm) machine guns in the chin pods. We would plan to take off at first light, and fly four sorties during the day, which generally put one airplane in the air over each Bde's AO at all times. Sometimes we staggered a little to avoid becoming predictable. If you had an area of visible activity every morning, we'd occasionally take off an hour early and try to catch the bad guys before they hid for the day (or take off late to save gas, depart on schedule, then suddenly return late in the evening and try to catch them)...and it sometimes worked!

As for CAS, it was a mixed bag. There were two basic kinds of support...Pre-plans (PP) and TIC support. For PPs, every day the Army woud review its intel and submit requests to 7th AF (thru each Corps "Direct Air Support Center" - DASC) for pre-planned strikes. Those were usually either hits on places the Army thought were bad guy locations, and LZ preps..strikes in advance of an attack or insertion. The former were notoriously bad ...the intel was frequently a report that "Six VC were seen at grid coords xxxxxxxx", or "A source says there are a dozen VC camped at grid coord xxxxxxx". Of course, by the time the sortie was actually fragged, it was two days later and even if the report was accurate (a rarity, in my opinion) they were long gone by then. But, the process allowed 7th AF to equitibly divide up the daily frag to give every unit a fair share of the action each day, and both the DASC and the FAC had the authority to move the strike if the Army changed plans or the six guys didn't cooperate and stay at their former location waving red flags or if there was a more important need somewhere else (TIC being one of those).

So, each day I would get up and report to the det's ops center about an hour prior to take off. I'd brief with our Ops Officer and then go to the division's Tactical Operations Center (TOC) to get a tactical update from the duty officer. I'd note the latest recorded position of all US and foreign (usually only ARVN) units in the field (I say "recorded" because they were frequently moving and there was no real time reporting in those days) and get a list of all the fragged activity (my PPs during my time on-station). I'd then get a ride down to the aircraft, pre-flight, and launch. It was all pretty casual...as a FAC, we ran our own war and there wasn't too much on-scene supervision in a "single seat" airplane (the OV had two seats, of course, but we flew alone except for an occasional demo ride for a visitor). Given that we flew in the same geographic area supporting the same guys against the same enemy about five days a week, the process didn't need a lot of formality...we knew our business and we knew what everybody else was doing, too. We always had a few "hip pocket targets" we knew needed some attention, even if the tasking chain didn't. Besides, if we had air and didn't use them, they'd be out of gas in ten minutes and dump their load in the ocean anyway. In my case, the AO bordered the Marines to the north (the "Hostage" FACs flying marine OVs) and we'd frequently talk to them to exchange information about the activity on our respective sides of the line, particularly valuable because the enemy wandered back and forth a lot and getting the Marine Regiment and the Army Bde to formally exchange info was an exercise in futility. The FACs spoke the same language, however, so that worked well. Generally, I'd fly into the AO...about a 10-15 minute flight from Chu Lai...and do a quick recce of known positions or reported activity. If I had PP scheduled I'd talk to our radio operator at the Bde CP and get an update on what was going on to determine if I needed to move the PP to another location. If so, I'd have him notify the DASC (it was supposed to be a "request", but I generally didn't phrase it that way. He may have...) and I'd go put in the strike at whereever I determined was the most useful location. Most of my air was AF F-4s from Danang or F-100s from Tuy Hua, and Marine F-4s, A-4s and A-6s from Chu Lai and Danang.

On the other hand, if a TIC erupted, the rules changed a little. If I had a PP already inbound, I'd divert it. Then I'd call for assets (via the radio operator at the CP) and the I Corps DASC ("I DASC") would first try to divert airborne assets for my use, or last, they'd launch alert aircraft if nothing was readily available. This was when it got a little interesting, because you might have a TIC with close contact and I DASC would send you four F-4s with 2000lb slicks (mk84s) previously enroute to hit the trail. As you might imagine, a mk 84 slick is not the most effective CAS weapon in the inventory, but it was the closest. When this happened you had to improvise. I might look at the ground and try to estimate where the bad guy's leadership might be supervising from...the crest of a nearby hill or a thick stand of trees a few hundred meters away...and dump the mk 84s there. If it didn't do anything else, it got their heads down and their ears bleeding. By the time that was over, maybe (usually) someone better suited would show up. We had A-1s at Danang and if we had a TIC we frequently got some of those. They were great, particularly because they were always loaded for anti-personnel missions (supporting SAR) and they had a couple of everything in the inventory onboard...20mm, 7.62, nape, mk81 (250lb) high drags, CBU, 2.75' rockets, and the ever-reliable .38 cal pistol the pilot would shoot out of the cockpit in a final act of defiance when he ran out of everything else (which took a while with A-1s!!). Not only that, but their slow speed made them incredibly accurate compared to a jet.

In the course of a week, we usually flew four or five days, spent one day as the temporary ALO at the 196th HQ, and had one day off. When we were at the Bde, I'd check in with the Bde S-2 (Intel) and S-3 (Operations) and then hop a chopper ride out to a firebase to talk with they guys in the field. They frequently knew a lot of little details that didn't make it up to the Division or Brigade level and we'd work out "deals"...sort of like trick plays we'd work on the bad guys. We knew they monitored our radios, so we worked out little codes for special things. For instance there was a little hill that one guy swore had a one or two man observation post on it, but it was hard to predict when the guy was out of his hole. We had a code that we set up that alerted me when the Platoon leader thought the observer was up. I then called in and said I was out of fuel and ammo and was going home. I then casually headed in the direction of Chu Lai until I flew over the hill, then dumped the nose and fired everything I had at the top of the hill. I never saw anything, but the platoon leader later said he never saw movement again, so we either got him or scared him off, I guess.

Finally, yes, we did go trolling for contact occasionally. It wasn't necessary most of the time, but if things were really quiet and boring, you could go out to a few of the places you knew were heavily visited by bad guys, and fiddle with the pitch to get the props a little out of sync. The resulting sound really grated on your nerves, so the bad guys would sometimes get pissed and fire a few shot at you. They weren't much of a threat, but now you had a valid "FAC under fire" situation and that was always good for a few flights of fighters from I DASC. They were mostly fighter guys, so they imagined 37mm or 57mm AAA blasting away at you. In our case it was usually a pissed off VC with a rifle or AK-47, but I didn't have to tell DASC about that. I had fun, the fighter guys who were also bored had fun, and the VC that survived had their fields plowed up for the spring planting. Everybody wins (well, almost everybody...not the guy with the AK and a few of his close friends, unless they ran fast for a ways before the fighters got there).

All this fun and games was ruined by a bunch of eggheads in the research labs who came up with SPAAGs and MANPADs. Mobile 23mm stuff ("ZPU-23-4" in my day) and SA-7s changed the rules a lot. No more slowly hanging around at 1500' watching for the bad guys. What a shame. It was really a great mission!

Edited February 23, 2010 by HiFlyer