War Stories

Many probably do not realise that the Hercs were used to medivac our wounded serviceman from Vietnam.
Flew very low so as to ease pressure on wounded limbs.
Bad cases like myself were put in full body casts, which were then split along the sides and taped together, in case of in flight swelling.
2 legs, SVN to Butterworth, couple of days to get over that, then Buttterworth to Darwin, then Richmond Air Force Base.
Amazing care on the trip from the RAAF personnel.

The story of the flight is one I would like to see.

Can only second the care taken by RAAF personell for medevac/casevac ex Butterworth. Did a great job. What I recall mostly was being served a huge FRESH steak at Butterworth night before flight home, welcome change from frozen meat served up at the Dat!
Getting carried away, over 45 years ago now, time waits for no-one. Don't remember much of the actual flight, was asleep most of the time, think one of the crew members told me actual flying time Butterworth to Richmond was 13 hours.
Dave_64

Thank you for your service fella's. The closest I came was as a non light horse uniformed shrine guard, so you have my utmost respect!

The old fella that got me into this truck addiction was a Nasho too!

Zuffen,
The story of what got me on the flight is far more interesting than the flight was, as Dave said, lot of sleep, they must have put something in the water !
Just not sure this is the place for waries, thats all.

Busman at the top of this page it written......................................
Forum>General Category> General Board> War Stories> Reply

So I think it will fit in......................

As for me knowing what happened over there,I wouldn't know, my number didn't come out....

Up to you I guess.....................

Like Colin my number didn't come up.

I was in the very last Draft.

I owe my position in Society to NOT going to Nam.

The Guys who did go have my utmost respect.

Fair comment, maybe not the correct forum for some topics. BUT, whilst we're here talking about Hercules aircraft, what were those smaller twin engine Hercules look-a-likes? Remember seeing a heap of them in Thailand, around 1990, would have been the main Bangkok airport.

Just googled it and it came up as a Fairchild C-123. Quite a history about them, anyone interested in aircraft would get a good read. I know we are straying a bit from the road transport forums, maybe put it under "General Interest" category?
Dave_64

The Fairchild C-123 go back to the 50's and Vietnam. They resupplied Khe San and were the aircraft fitted with spray bars to dump Agent Orange. They had piston engines (sometimes with turbo take-off assist).

The Thai ones you saw are more modern but look similar.

They are the Italian G222. Absolutely outstanding aircraft. Lockheed are restoring (Total rebuild) a lot of these as the C27 Spartan. Dozens of Air Forces have the Aero Macchi G222 and its derivatives. The RAAF have a few on trial to replace the Caribous.

There was recently a scandal when the Americans delivered about 20 of these to Afghanistan as aid brand new. The program was a total stuff-up, no parts, no support. They could not take them back so crushed 20 multi-million dollar aircraft on the side of the runway!. Here is the Wall Street Journal article on the scandal - unbelievable.

www.wsj.com/articles/cargo-planes-for-af...-scrapped-1412859933

The Canadians have ordered a large number to provide their tactical heavy lift support.




Here is a link to one of your Thai aircraft trying a bit hard on an air show display! If you follow the further links in the article you will see this heavy transport doing vertical climbs and loops!!!

www.richard-seaman.com/Aircraft/AirShows...t2002/G222/Accident/

Lang, great response there!Thanks. Dave