Jay

One of the unsung hero's of the war in VN was the C-130. They hauled
'trash' day and night to support the Army from the big airfields to
the laderite (clay) strips used by the FAC's, choppers, etc.

I remember well one time i had just landed on a 7-800 foot laderite
strip and turned off end of R/W in my 0-1. I looked back and here was
a C-130 on short final dragging it in. He chopped power (Or maybe
reversed in air) and smacked on the end of th R/W and immediately went
to full reverse on the props. This sucked up a cloud of red dust and I
lost the plane in the cloud. All I could see was his wing tips swaying
back and forth sticking our of the cloud as he applied full brakes and
reverse. Was still going like a bat out of hell and I goosed the
engine pretty hard and taxied away from the end of the R/W where I
thought he would run off and burn. As the 130 approached the end of
the R/W it slowed down and finally made a high speed 90 degree turn
off the R/W. He then taxied to the side of the field opposite the
center of R/W and opened his ramp and four rubber bladders rolled out
the back on the ground like big wide inner tubes that could be hooked
together and pulled to where they were needed.

The 130 never stopped while they were rolling out the back and went on
to the end of the R/W and lined right on the end. Ran the engines up
to full power and used about 2/3 of that little R/W that I used about
3/4 in the 0-1 and flew back to get more supplies.

I never pass the chance to pat those guys on the back as no one else
will. I saw what they did and give them full credit for a job well
done.

If we got any 130 crews on the thread they should speak up and tell
some of their stories.
Big John

If you talk to the 'grunts', besides CAS they will all tell you the
130 hauled everything they needed and flew day and night, sun and
rain.

I really took my hats off to those jocks.

Big John



On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 20:18:05 GMT, "Jay Honeck"
wrote:

What is the aircraft that is most closely associated with the Viet Nam war?