On Pattaya Beach – Unofficial R&R Discussion

[MM]

Put your feet up, sip a beverage, and enjoy the sunset. This is a thread for discussing non-official matters regarding the Vietnam Jets Event. A good spot for tall tales and great screenshots. Interesting detail about the history of the air war, the aircraft, and the pilots, would be appreciated. All stories, true and/or interesting, will earn another round at the bar.

[MM]

Some scenery for the Vietnam Jets event.

If you are interested in adding some period-specific ambience, a good relatively quick source is the FSX Vietnam War Project by Xavier Carré, Jacques Godfrin and José Guenaizia. They have a dedicated Vietnam War Project website. For our purposes, you do not need the full set of installations. You will want (i) the main "Base Pack" and (ii) the "Airfields Pack 1" which fixes some noticeable errors in the base pack (and adds more airports). It may be easier to download from FlightSim.com, looking for "vnw_v09.zip" and "vnw_ap1.zip". (Go to the FlightSim.com page here.) These packages give you wartime airport scenery and static aircraft for all of the event's air bases.

[PRB]

Thanks for the scenery tip Mike!

I'm reading this book right now. About half way through. The Hunter Killers: The Extraordinary Story of the First Wild Weasels, the Band of Maverick Aviators Who Flew the Most Dangerous Missions of the Vietnam War. An amazing story. To say those crews had "big giant brass ones" would understate it. The loss rate for these missions was 50%. And still they went out day after day, inventing a new way to deal with a new threat. By trial and error.

[Willy]

I thought someone said there's a beach around here???

[PhantomTweak]

Talking to the few Weasels I met in the Corps, I understand they say the HARM missile, the one they settled on as the best for their mission, is the only missile with a special "Home on Animosity" feature. Apparently Raytheon programmed them to positively detest the dumb, nodding, vertical scan radar dishes, and they gleefully track down the beam to destroy them.
No one from Raytheon has ever commented on this however
My hat goes off to some very brave Wild Weasels, and their Bears, or backseaters. It takes a special kind of man to sit in the back of a maneuvering plane, head buried in the scope, while missiles are comming at you. I can only imagine.
Of course the pilot's have to have ice-water in their veins. To dodge a SAM you have to wait until you are sure it's about to impact the aircraft, then a little longer, then break into it. Hard. And they would do it over, and over. Amazing.
Beach time!
Pat☺

[spokes2112]

Came across these while searching for particular photos I took at EAA Airventure 2015. A tribute to those missing in action.

Here's the article from the opening day "Airventure Today" news rag - (edit - the link doesn't work as a redirect, copy and paste into browser) http://issuu.com/eaahq/docs/avt15_sun0726/36

"Leave no man behind"

[spokes2112]

Back in the days while a pooping little fart, watching Walter Cronkite, it was known that those that didn't go abroad for services,,,, took psychedelics.

I call this - Mind Warp.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#curren....38,21.87,1357

Zoom out or click the "Earth" icon for more mind experiences.

Peace.

[PhantomTweak]

THAT is an interesting site!
Thanks for posting it!
Pat☺

[PRB]

What Pat said! Amazing.

[PRB]

Took my 8mm movie camera on my last leg, from Udon to Dienbien. Used some bungee cords and duck tape to fix it to the seat. Tried to duplicate how pilots hop over ridges, by rolling upside down and "pulling" over the top. Saw that on the Youtube. Not sure I have the technique down yet, but I didn't bump into anything. Yet...

Did you see those two Chinese AN-2s parked at Bien Bien? That's cool. That's from the FSX Vietnam War Project scenery.

[PRB]

In the books I've been reading I've learned that Vietnam was divided into "target sectors" or "areas". But to confuse future readers on the subject they didn't call them areas or sectors, but "Route Packs". That's weird. Here's a map of them, from THIS web site.

[MM]

Here is a description of the Vietnam War Airfields. (This is a pdf downloadable from DropBox.) It is meant to provide some context for the Summer Event. The document provides some detail of the various air bases, the aircraft that flew from them, and the sorts of missions involved.

Please understand that this is mostly a compilation of materials taken from the web for the private use of the "Vietnam Jets" event. (The Vietnam War can be a difficult subject. My intent is to avoid hot-button issues but I may have inadvertently done so. My apologies in advance.)

--MM

[Willy]

Got some pics of a poor lost Ford over North Vietnam. Fortunately, i managed to land it in the fog at Dien Bien after a few passes. It took me longer to set up the approach and land than the flight from Hanoi did....

[srgalahad]

It was a dark and stormy night...

There I was, sitting in my favorite little bar in a small town in Loas - OK, so it is the only bar in that little town - enjoying my five days of R&R from the 'contract consultant' operation that some guys were running in SEA (no, I can't tell you anything except that it involved flying) when in walked a guy that looked vaguely familiar. Maybe it was the Loatian beer that made him look familiar but there was something else...

I'd been looking at the menu (bilingual) that seemed to make no sense in any language. I was about to make a WAG -wildazzed guess- when the stranger suggested I avoid the fish. Now even his voice seemed familiar, but I couldn't place it in the haze.

"what's wrong with the fish?", I asked.

"Well, from what I know, the owner buys from a bunch of guys who have an export business selling exotic reef fish to aquarium suppliers. However their fishing practices are a bit shoddy so they catch a lot of protected species. Rather than get caught sorting the poached piscines they just sell some species like loach and parrot fish to the locals. I'm not sure how edible they are but they certainly are illegally obtained."

"So why should I be worried if they are poachers? I'm just buying dinner."

"Oh, probably nothing can go wrong, but then the authorities, such as they are, might also infer that you knew and thus were party to the illegal operation."

He smiled, grabbed a couple of beers and sat down at my table. Bingo! Now I knew! the stranger was the Athletic Director from my old college! Name of Roche, but behind his back we called him "Roach". What a coincidence that he'd drop in here.

We swapped tales, and beers, for a bit and I inferred that he was also a 'consultant'.
Then he asked: "Can you fly a helicopter?" (To be continued...)

[srgalahad]

I started to regale him with tales of "How I Sure Could" but he cut me off like he used to in team meetings all those years ago. Then he hit me with THE Offer. It seems his outfit had a need to move some "items" around Vietnam and Laos before the end of the month but couldn't be seen doing it. They had the route, pickup points, fuel and communications all arranged but then came the 'catch'...

He tells me they can't just buy a chopper but they have found one in good shape and newly arrived 'in-theater' that could be "borrowed for a few days" - a low-time Hughes OH-6 Cayuse. I was going to laugh and tell him it sounded too risky, illegal, dangerous and I'd never flown a "Loach" as the Army guys called the Hughes. Before I could inhale and begin the refusal he reached into his knapsack and pulled out one of those old coffee cans. He opened it and all I could see was that it was filled with U.S dollars. Actually they were all bills with large numbers on them!

"It's yours if you take the job", he said quietly as he laid a map and a sheet torn from a calendar on the table.

What was I going to do? There was enough cash in the can to BUY a freakin' chopper! So, I took my shot-
I said: "OK Coach Roach, I'll poach a Loach!"

So here I am... (and I ordered the Kung Pao chicken)

[PRB]

Ok. I'm back. Sorry for my brief MIA the past week. I was on vacation, and among the many places we visited was this airport, which has some relevance to our little racing event...

[spokes2112]

Welcome back Paul!

[PRB]

Welcome back Paul!

Thanks Roman!

[Willy]

A few kodaks from my flight to VTUN a bit ago. For once, it all went well for the most part in the Ford...