Ray Swindle wrote:
IIRC the Warthog reluctantly came into the USAF inventory because they wanted to maintain the separation of missions with the US Army. The USAF had fixed wing AC and they only wanted the Army to have helicopters. The Army told the USAF they needed something like the Warthog and would go ahead with an RFI for such a craft. The USAF has been trying to eliminate the A-10 out of the inventory since, the only thing keeping it alive was the determination of the Army.
I believe if the Marines or the Navy had developed the A-10, it would have been treated more fairly and we could probably see newer variants.
I imagine the USAF is working on an unmanned variant to replace the A-10, if not, the Army is. The USAF is the most risk adverse department in our military. Having a pilot fly low and slow above active enemy units scares the crap out of the ladies running the USAF. (Just the opinion of a retired USAF crew chief.)
All I can say Ray, is
AMEN.
Even back then (66-67) we took a lot of heat from the USAF for the setup on our aircraft.
They even forced out the armed platoons of OV-1s. Pure insanity and envy of "turf protection".
Charlie Sierra idiocy - forget the Mission.
Yeah -
A lot of my job was to fly around looking to see if I could irritate them enough to come out of hiding .
HQ called it visual reconnaissance - I called it boring holes in the sky.
One wag described our mission as hours and hours of boredom punctuated by moments of stark terror.
Wasn't really like that, mostly, I was trying to find out what they were doing - tunnels, trenches, catch them in the open sneaking up on the ARVNs, a bit of H&I - harassment and interdiction.
I could fly up to 9 hours a day, and was told if it ended at midnight - tough . .
- not often, PTL, but some days were long, especially covering operations one the ground, alternating station times, and trying to prevent ambushes - then it got interesting.
Yeah, quite different from what the antagonizing press wanted to trumpet.
I had an area about 25+ miles x 40+ miles to patrol. Yeah - I was the hunter. . .
The USAF was to bring the hurt.
We sometimes swapped efforts for a little bit.
Watched 20mm mow trees. A Huey could land in a 500 # bomb crater.
Long ago, but at times seems like but yesterday.
So very many other guys had it so much worse.
Love that description. I joined the USAF at 19 (I tried at 18, they told me I was too young but I persisted) in 1970, didn't make it to SEA, but I love to hear stories from you guys. Amazing what the guys in action had to do. You guys were my heroes. I worked with an Army guy who was drafted. After being shot 3 times (twice around the head and once in the hip) and continually being sent to the front lines, he went AWOL to Saigon to find a congressman from his state to tell him he couldn't take any more. He had 3 months left in SEA and traded his time remaining for 4 years in the USAF. He never complained about the switch and wasn't bitter. He had a wife and a couple of kids. He was happy he survived.
I have two clients that have me building large libraries of still and video imagery so that we can tell their ongoing stories in print, on social media, and in documentaries. Both collections already have hundreds of images and video clips and we are in the very early stages of the process. I had envisioned a lot of lighting and orchestrated "annual report" style captures but, so far, there has been little time for those kind of shots, run'n'gun has been the order of the day. Seems like those ad agency heavily orchestrated types of assignments have fallen by the wayside in favor of fast action and volume. Fortunately technology has kept pace with the change, sure would hate to be shooting this stuff on film with little or no feedback, save maybe a crummy Polaroid rendition.
JWilsonphoto wrote:
Flying an L-19 around Vietnam in the dark, the thought makes my knees a little weak. A Garmin glass panel would have been nice....................
Anything like that would have been incredible.
839 was a 57 model, so basic panels is what we had - with little UV lights that made most of the instruments fluoresce.
My Crew Chief's jeep headlights marked the runway - a bit dicey on a no-moon night.
Had to fly with my nav lights off because the bored ARVNs would shoot at anything that flew.
I think the VC knew better :-)
Tracers would arc up and fall over till they went out. Air Vietnam seemed to fly 2k' higher than I did so I watched the tracers arc over below them.
ARVN mech units on the road were really jumpy - trigger happy too. Can't blame them however.
I did hate it the night I was caught between squall lines with airports on the other side of each.
PTL for Paddy Control's radar finding a thin spot over the river.
A ride in your Cub would be like heaven.
Jan-Arie wrote:
Hi Dan, I think I did see some film footage of that unloading on the go and low drop extraction with chute.
Scary time's.
May I ask Dan was the battle of Khe Sanh in the same timeframe as the start of the Tet offensive ?
You certainly may!
YES! TET was a few months longer. Khe Sanh started about a week before and ended sometime in July my combat unit was "relieved" of its involvement after Operation Pegasus was finished.
My FOB was 5 miles West of KS on Hwy9 on Laotion border. "The Route 9 Problem". So there were times my unit was overlapping both operations because of the proximity and also because this was the heigth of the war and combat proficient NCO's were in very short supply. Hence the mix of SEAL, USAF SO, Army Rangers-LRRPS as Team Leaders in SOG.
Shotgun15 wrote:
Yeah -
A lot of my job was to fly around looking to see if I could irritate them enough to come out of hiding .
HQ called it visual reconnaissance - I called it boring holes in the sky.
One wag described our mission as hours and hours of boredom punctuated by moments of stark terror.
Wasn't really like that, mostly, I was trying to find out what they were doing - tunnels, trenches, catch them in the open sneaking up on the ARVNs, a bit of H&I - harassment and interdiction.
I could fly up to 9 hours a day, and was told if it ended at midnight - tough . .
- not often, PTL, but some days were long, especially covering operations one the ground, alternating station times, and trying to prevent ambushes - then it got interesting.
Yeah, quite different from what the antagonizing press wanted to trumpet.
I had an area about 25+ miles x 40+ miles to patrol. Yeah - I was the hunter. . .
The USAF was to bring the hurt.
We sometimes swapped efforts for a little bit.
Watched 20mm mow trees. A Huey could land in a 500 # bomb crater.
Long ago, but at times seems like but yesterday.
So very many other guys had it so much worse....Show more →
You "Bird Dogs" had a helluva a bark brother! Yes your "six" was always exposed BUT you provided many "trails" for our "Bright Light" missions and kept "Uncle Ho's Boyz" off our ass while extracting the downed airman or lost infantry men!
Thanks for your service brother!
See ya on the other side!
Dan
And it would be my honor! You are a taildragger’s taildragger pilot for sure. What did you train in prior to the Bird Dog?
Shotgun15 wrote:
Anything like that would have been incredible.
839 was a 57 model, so basic panels is what we had - with little UV lights that made most of the instruments fluoresce.
My Crew Chief's jeep headlights marked the runway - a bit dicey on a no-moon night.
Had to fly with my nav lights off because the bored ARVNs would shoot at anything that flew.
I think the VC knew better :-)
Tracers would arc up and fall over till they went out. Air Vietnam seemed to fly 2k' higher than I did so I watched the tracers arc over below them.
ARVN mech units on the road were really jumpy - trigger happy too. Can't blame them however.
I did hate it the night I was caught between squall lines with airports on the other side of each.
PTL for Paddy Control's radar finding a thin spot over the river.
A ride in your Cub would be like heaven....Show more →
Thanks Dan.
I can remember leading a Dustoff Huey in at low level to show him where the pick up was to be made and orbited (low and fast!) to then lead him out to the river for his climb out.
That H model Huey nearly ate my tailwheel . . .
My Birddog could fly circles around B models, having to slow a bit while helping in their Daisy-Chains, could keep up with the D Model Slicks, but Dustoff had the dash 15 engines, scary fast - but really good idea for "ambulances".
On the subject of our 9M hits, we plowed a lot of new ground around the subject of aviation photography. Paul Bowen, was the air to air pioneer, beside Paul, me and maybe one or two others, no one was shooting air to air. There was one site, can’t recall the name at the moment, but it fizzled after a few years. We just quietly kept on growing. I’m not positive, but I don’t believe that there is another thread the size of ours, and I am positive that a finer group of people does not exist. Here’s to 10M and beyond!
Shotgun15 wrote:
Thanks Dan.
I can remember leading a Dustoff Huey in at low level to show him where the pick up was to be made and orbited (low and fast!) to then lead him out to the river for his climb out.
That H model Huey nearly ate my tailwheel . . .
.
JDE1 wrote:
The Air Force has been after the A10s for years and years. If Congress hadn't stepped in, the A10s would have been gone long ago.
Marylands ANG has a few of these to fly recon over Maryland's Eastern Shore! I love them!
