RA-5C story

[Uncle Fester]

Article in Air & Space Magazine last year about a Vigilante from Kitty Hawk that diverted into Thailand.

http://www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/Thai_Boom.html?c=y&page=1

Good story, and yet another example of how much things have changed (except the part of how an idle comment at one end of the chain translates into "Launch the Alert 7 firing squad" at the other)

Nowadays, no one would be happy until all concerned were keelhauled and exiled for life. Assuming the Air Force would have let you divert without a PPR to begin with.

 

[A4sForever]

Article in Air & Space Magazine last year about a Vigilante from Kitty Hawk that diverted into Thailand.

http://www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/Thai_Boom.html?c=y&page=1

"BOOM" Powell = A good guy and a good stick -- always steady on the ball in the VIG -- he was in Heavy-7 and on his second (?) VIGI cruise when I knew him. But the A&S article notwithstanding, he was not exactly a "junior" pilot in the sense of being inexperienced when he did his RONx3 @ UBON ... he'd already cruised and got combat time as an A-4 driver in A-4 "fighter/attack" Dets on CVS's prior to going on to NAS ALBANY and VIGI's. He made the "career move" as the CVS's started going away and the number of A-4 'Rons started "shrinking" along with the available small decks.

He ended up w/ a ton of hours in the A-4 AND somewhat less in the VIG. And then he went into the airlines ...

All in all ... a great career.

 

[FastMover]

I play Wings Over Vietnam quite a bit and have played pretty much all of the missions from the first Yankee Air Pirate. For anyone who plays Wings Over 'Nam the downloads are well worth the $$ and are a lot of fun.

 

[Lovebug201]

Good story, and yet another example of how much things have changed (except the part of how an idle comment at one end of the chain translates into "Launch the Alert 7 firing squad" at the other)

Nowadays, no one would be happy until all concerned were keelhauled and exiled for life. Assuming the Air Force would have let you divert without a PPR to begin with.

..........
Great story - Ubon was a great divert location. Did it a couple of times, once for weather at Danang and once with a broken bird.

Pretty much the same story, hung out with the AF F-4 types who always reached for their wallet in the club, somthing about a green bag seemed to fasinate them.

Broken bird at Ubon just before Christmas - Bob Hope shows up with the Gold Diggers, all that plus free drinks -

Life was good :icon_tong

 

[Cron]

I made a post a few months back which contained a few RA-5C anecdotes, written by the legendary "Hoser" Satrapa. He posts regularly on the F-14 Sunset forums, you should give him a holler.

http://www.tomcat-sunset.org/forums/index.php?topic=4505.0

http://www.tomcat-sunset.org/forums/index.php?topic=2441.0

"The Vigi was Faaast! The AAA usually exploaded a good 3000' behind us on photo runs. However, it was a bitch coming aboard ship. After earning the 'Golden Tail Hook" trophy, in F-8's, 2 combat cruises in a row, d-Hose figured the Vigi had to be a piece of cake. Holygwackaskamoly! The Vigi had no ailerons, only 4 sets of spoilers, top and bottom, of each wing. The two inboard sets would open for roll inputs while the outboard spoiler on the other wing would open for yaw compensation.(with one set opening in to the wind) So, no sweat at high speed but on glide slope approaching ship at 145kts, any line up correction had to be coordinated with the appropriate back stick/AOA, power addition(auto throttles) then reverse the procedure to stabilize on glide slope. All them spoilers caused loss of lifties. There was a trick we used ONLY AT NIGHT when the LSO's or Air Boss could not see. The ENTIRE vertical stabilizer moved on the Vigi. So at night rather than doing all that line up cluster bungle above, we could mash in a bunch of rudder for line up corrections. This could NOT be done in day light because at a quarter mile the Vigi would look as though it were headed straight at the LSO platform on "left for line up" and at the Air Boss, "right for line up".... just for a moment of course. Well, trying it ounce on a day recovery, all I saw was 4 south ends of the LSO's leaping into the net. Weak, real weak! Bottom line,,, could only use at night. So a night Vigi pass had its rewards. Boom Powell will confirm. VR D-Hose"

"November 1971, NAM, USS America, Ron Ludlow(air wing LSO and F-4 driver) and D-Hose briefed a 1v1 Vigi vs. F-4. Of course a agreement was made that the F-4 would limit it's "g's" to 4.5 g's which was the Vigi symmetric limit @ 50% fuel. D- Hose's RAN(Rob Binder) was thoroughly briefed as what to expect. Not much fun for him in a rolling scissors with two 5"x8" windows. It was a 1.5 mile abeam split start with both of us attempting a lead turn in the vertical prior to merge. We found ourselves in a neutral slow speed rolling scissors(140kts) at about 22k', both with full flaps. We disengaged 180 out and unloaded for knots. Picking up bout 400kts, we recommitted. D-Hose goes nose high again hoping to suck Ron in to losing his 6.5g envelope cause it was time for Ron to say the hell with our agreement and use his extra available 'g' for position. The wings of the Vigi under a 4.5 g load are bowed up what looks to be bout 20 degrees in the rear view mirrors. Yep, he reefed on the pole and so D-Hose gets max angles out, unloads to zero 'g' with both burners blowing full and leaves Ron outside gun range by the time he gets his nose on. The Vigi has bout 60% less drag than the F-4 so opening is a piece of cake. That's why the Vigi would maintain 1.2 IMN in basic engine at sea level. Oh yeah, forgot to mention it was a visual split, GUNS ONLY.... HaaaRR! VR D-Hose"

"June of 1969, checking in to the Vigi RAG in Albany GA, the first question D-Hose had was, “how is the hunting and fishing round here?”. Answer; “it sux cause all the surrounding land is privately owned by farmers and they hate the jet noise”! “PERFECT”! Several weeks later, D-Hose started his Vigi training flights. Returning to base, the surrounding farmers land was photographed with 18” pan and 6” serial frame recce cameras from about 8k’. A very nice, crystal clear collection of black and white 18”x20” and 8”x10” photos were compiled. On two weekends D-Hose, in a flight suit, ‘piss cutter’ in hand, standing pigeon toed, custody of the eyes and max humble ‘Hoser’ mode, knocks on the first, Farmer Jessup’s, door. “Sir, I am one of those Navy guys that is making all that dad blain noise. Ya see those damned auto throttles in the Vigi make dem J-79,s have that terrible ghoulish high pitch warble, especially at night during carrier landing practice.. and I thought that by explaining to you, sir, what our mission is and giving you these aerial photos of yours and the surrounding farms may ease the angry attitude that prevails towards us Navy guys.” Explaining, that we are all displaced from our own homes and land because of the war, we have no place to hunt or fish: Overwhelmed with compassion and expressing gratitude for the aerial photos, three out of five farmers visited, gave written permission to hunt and fish on their land and jet noise complaints were minimized. Hence forth, hunting and fishing was outstanding and we had access to many private max-out bass and cat fish ponds. Two weeks before dove season, Farmer Higgins calls: “Is Mr. Hoser there? You may be interested to know, that I am harvesting the corn on my south 40 along the Flint River the week before Dove season.” D-Hose, “thank you sir, if it is OK, we’ll have a total of five shooters around your south 40 on opening day”. The prezact program was incorporated using imagery obtained with the F-14, TARPS at both VX-4 (Pt Mugu) and NAS Oceana, VA. Improvise, adapt and overcome: (USMC)… and of course, greasing the skids,, helps! VR D-Hose"

"OK, can ya handle one more Vigi story??? I'll take that as a

From D-Hose's combat journal, bout Nov 1971, Gulf Of Tonkin, Vigi, RTB, suspected combat damage, utility hyd gage in the yellow, min fuel, CAVU to the moon, bright sunny PM, calm seas....... VIgi in the groove,,,,, "Roger Ball, 29 kts down the angle",,, well, D-Hose is in Pri Fly with the "Blue Pill" (NATOPS) cause of the (E) situation.... Perfect! OK 3 wire on center line...... bout 20 yards from the end of rollout, the nose gear collapses and the Vigi nose settles gently to the deck. Well, the front canopy opens immediately, and Phil Peroffilo steps out of the cockpit stbd side, right on to the flight deck. The rear canopy remained closed for what seemed like a long time.... The rear Vigi canopy only had a small window on each side for the RAN to look out. Bout 8"x10"

They also had a TV ( hoop-d-doo) George Canellos, in the back, was a small guy, maybe 145lbs in full flight gear, a man of very few words but with a crisp sense of humor.. bout the time the crash crew is heading out to check on George,,,, the stbd slide shade over the rear canopy window slides aft and a 8"x10" sign appears,,,,, "JOB AVAILABLE, APPLY WITHIN" VR D-Hose"

 

[zerocinco]

All that is good stuff over a Singha beer but only of interest to pilots. To a gamer, making a landing at Ubon (where I have also limped into with missing chunks) is pretty mundane compared to fantasy crap. On the other hand, that middle photo taken by Mr. D-Hose is a story all by itself. That's something YAP can do justice to.

I can read the date. I can surmise the carrier and unit. I can see the weather. Can you tell me who was stirring up the dust at the DJ Bridge that attempt? ...where they floated between missions?

And sometimes, we are lucky enough to know the strike pilot as well as the recce pilot and we can combine both into the same mission. Our recce missions are some of our best and take a ton of work to get to make sense.

I once had to make it home with NO fuel and could see the airport getting closer at the speed of a snail. It was a big moment...but it would look dumb in a game. But taking a leisurely cruise by the Ham Rong Bridge for a photo shoot is a counter.

Details please and we will put you into the game. You will be in good company.

 

[A4sForever]

I can read the date. I can surmise the carrier and unit. I can see the weather. Can you tell me who was stirring up the dust at the DJ Bridge that attempt? ...where they floated between missions?...

Then you've got it all, yea-as ???

USS America, Air Wing 8, VA-82 Waldo's OR VA-86 Sidewinder's flyin' A-7C's w/ Walleye's and/or Mk84's, if memory serves it was probably 6 OCT '72 even thought the pix says "5 OCT" (date line problems for the AI's .. ??).

It put the kibosh to the Thanh Hoa Bridge.

DJ Bridge?? What's that ???

 

[Cron]

There's more details on that particular Thanh Hoa bridge mission on these two pages:

http://www.tomcat-sunset.org/forums/index.php?topic=2441.msg34822

http://www.tomcat-sunset.org/forums/index.php?topic=2441.510

 

[zerocinco]

duplicate

 

[zerocinco]

DJ Bridge = Dragon's Jaw Bridge. I was just tired of typing. I might abbreviate anything at any mmt.

Any way I can converse with a witness to the mission? It's sort of a policy of ours.

 

[Mumbles]

Any missions against the Paul Doumer bridge?? ( I think that was almost always a USAF strike passage though).

 

[zerocinco]

Yes. And Canal Des Rapides upstream a ways. But for rust pickers, there are several to the Hai Duong Bridges, a nasty place where the USN directed traffic. (They had some extremely bad bridge targets.) There's an early mission to the Thai Nguyen Bridge before the Pack's were divided up. I think most bridge missions were guys most memorable raids so we end up popping the Bac Giang, the Bac Ninh, Viet Tri, Phu Tho and a bunch more. Usually, you are so busy keeping Lead in site, arming weapons, setting the intervolometer, dodging AAA and going in and out of skud that you fly right on by the target the first time and end up looking for a guy on a waterbuffalo (we have them) giving you the finger. I once bombed the wrong country so it's not that unrealistic to be a tad busy.

 

[Catmando]

... I think most bridge missions were guys most memorable raids so we end up popping the Bac Giang, the Bac Ninh, Viet Tri, Phu Tho and a bunch more. .....

Bridges sucked as a target, and not very "memorable." They were hard to hit effectively with dumb bombs and were very difficult to drop a span, even if hit directly. Plus they were repaired quickly. And they never provided secondaries.

What were "memorable raids" were POL storage areas, with their massive secondaries, and later smoke to 30,000, and the pyrotechnics of hitting a major weapons storage area. Railroad transshipment areas were pretty good too. Great targets, and lots of secondaries. Targets downtown in Hanoi and Haiphong were pretty memorable too, mostly because of the massive resistance, far beyond any bridge - including the Thanh Hoa.

In fact the only bridge that was "memorable" was the Thanh Hoa Bridge, only because of its heavy resistance, and the many missions flown against it and with losses, but without success.

But most bridge missions were relatively not all that memorable, and as a target, they usually sucked.

 

[zerocinco]

Sounds like you remember them very clearly nonetheless.

 

[Catmando]

Sounds like you remember them very clearly nonetheless.

I really do remember a lot – but very little about your precious "bridges".

I remember the satisfaction of giving some CAS more than once that saved a bunch of our guy's lives on the ground. I remember 112 confirmed by msg traffic, KBA NVA regulars I caught in the open in the DMZ and that I personally bagged before lunch one morning. (That was memorable - I then requested no more body counts msgs to me, so I can't legitimately claim any more subsequently. And I don't think that equates to any frack'n 'bridge' memories.) I also remember missions where friends were shot down – some made it back; some were captured; and some died.

But I don't remember very many stinkin bridges! .... like you seem to do!


But like I said, most bridge missions were relatively not all that memorable, and as a target, they usually sucked.


I never heard of "Canal Des Rapides" and I don't know what the frack "rust pickers" are. Hai Duong bridges sounds familiar, but hardly a "nasty place where the USN directed traffic" as you say. Where do you get this stuff?

Where do you come up with this lingo? Is it Air Force?

While perhaps "busy", I never as you say (OK, maybe 1 time) had a problem keeping my lead in sight; never had a problem "arming weapons" - it was second nature after a while - and our "intervolometer" was set on deck before departure, so that wasn't a problem. We didn't have to "dodge AAA" because we jinked every 4-6 seconds, whether we were fired upon or not. And we didn't "skud fly" over the North. It was prohibited. I never saw nor knew anyone who flew "right on by the target the first time." And at 50ft. and 700 kts, one is never going to see "a guy on a waterfuffalo giving you the finger." Nor did I ever know anyone to have "bombed the wrong country" accidentally as you say you did. On purpose, yes. Accidentally, no.

Where do you come up with this stuff?

Personally, I question you and your meaning in all this. Either you have read a lot, or have a vivid imagination. Are you for real?
Regardless, I question anyone who has a business that exploits anyone who flew in Vietnam. Questions?