Air america again

**Ian Warren** · October 28th, 2015, 02:07

Well boys and girls, I needed a break, well over a year , AIR AMERICA the movie .. damn pleased just to have it on the shelf ...

**roger-wilco-66** · October 28th, 2015, 03:27

I also watch that one regularly, about three or four times a year! It's a much disputed tale in regards to reality, but I just love the C-123k, PC-6 Porter and Huey sequences.

It also keeps me flying in Laos all the time in the sim.

Cheers,
Mark

***Crusader*** · October 28th, 2015, 05:41

I'm shifting through the old DVD's now and going to watch Air America today . I too love all the aircraft segments , especially the Porter on the uphill mountain strip .

Rich

**roger-wilco-66** · October 28th, 2015, 06:34

A good read is "Air America" by Christopher Robbins, to cover the factual side a bit. There are many small anecdotes in the book that were used in the movie, like when the pilots got in their hair over painting in a childs drawing book with crayons.

The forming and expansion of the Air America organization is one of the most vivid and breathtaking stories out there, IMO, and Robbins did a great job researching it.

Cheers,
Mark

**rdaniell** · October 28th, 2015, 06:43

There's also some pretty decent youtube videos on Air America.

RD

**xpelekis** · October 28th, 2015, 07:35

Also a favourite movie of mine that I regularly watch also.
Inspiring enough, used Air America as a theme for my first mission
building tests, 2 years ago...

Dialogues are for "laughs"

and used text to speech tool for them. But even so,
it was fun and satisfactory to fly it...

**joe bob** · October 28th, 2015, 08:35

I have listened to several oral history interviews with Air America pilots and they hate the movie for how it portrayed them but loved the flying scenes.

I don't think it likely that any knowingly flew drugs, but with guys like Tony Poe having such a free hand on the ground and how important drugs were as a cash crop to the Hmong, I have no doubt that a portion of those packages they flew contained illegal drugs. Their day was just hopping from dirt strip to dirt strip. People get on, people get off, cargo is shoved in, cargo is shoved out, all day every day.

The biggest takeaway for me from the interviews was that the Air America guys were not career CIA, certainly not spy types. They were almost universally guys who scored a good paying, exotic, an exciting job.
I think the writers of the movie tried to humorously capture the insanity that the war in Laos was. I don't think any one person ever really knew all that was going on there at any one time. I am not sure anyone does today.

You had a tripartite government at war with itself fighting a sideshow war by proxy for the US, USSR, China and both Vietnams. All who agreed to pretend that the country was neutral while it was the most bombed country the world has ever known. At one time in the capital of Laos, Vientiane you had CIA pilots drinking at a bar while the next table over sat Soviet pilots who delivered cargo to the opposite side and down the road NVA officers played volleyball in an R and R compound.