marine air wrote:
A friend of mine flew special ops missions in Vietnam, flying four tours in Caribou, C-130's and other types. He flew to over 400 airports, and landing zones. Most of them rough and unimproved. even in Afghanistan there are several former Soviet runways and other facilities to choose from.
A few years ago the History Channel had a series about Vietnam, IIRC about Air America. In one film clip it showed a Caribou stabbing a landing on an uneven undulating track on the spine of a steep mountain...what's often referred to in the mountains of the South US as a razorback. Almost at the end of a bouncing and lurching flogfest, the Caribou disappeared into a huge cloud of dust and debris when the props hit reverse pitch. As the dust cloud cleared one expected to see catastrophic wreckage...but nope, out the beast trundled leaving a dust wake as it taxied to it's miniscule unloading turnaround spot. Freakin' awesome! Some of those guys must have lingering internal organ damage! Hugely underpaid!
On another note...Has anyone seen early period photos of Caribous in natural metal finish? I can swear I have, but I haven't been able to find any. Anybody?