O1 retrieval in Vietnam

[david layne]

When I served in Vietnam we recovered this Bird dog with a Chinook. As the serial numbers can be seen I was curious to know if anyone could tell me more about this aircraft and what happened to it after we hauled in in.

[Enemy Ace]

I wonder why they bothered?? That thing looks pretty torn up.

[david layne]

Thanks for the constructive comment.

[david layne]

As I recall it was called a "mule" and was used to haul boxes of ammo and the like.

[bdk]

http://olive-drab.com/idphoto/id_photos_m274.php

[Enemy Ace]

Mr layne,
As an A&P and IA with plenty of sheet metal experience I can tell you that that plane would have needed extensive rebuilding. No way around it. I have seen aircraft with less damage than that destroyed in place in Iraq and Afghanistan and they cost WAY more than that Birddog. Sorry your little feelings got hurt.

[Warhawk]

I wonder why they bothered?? That thing looks pretty torn up.

Despite it being torn up they would not leave it where the enemy could salvage it if possible. Even destroying it in place would leave scraps that the enemy could use so recovery was the only real option.

[Tulio]

And even if not repairable, they could have takent it back to base, to cannibalize for parts, to keep other O-1s flying.


Saludos,


Tulio

[david layne]

Towards the end of my tour I was transferred to the Battalion's aviation unit "Pipesmoke.” Our mission was to perform field extractions of crashed and combat damaged aircraft from the III Corps Tactical Zone northwest of Saigon.

During it’s time of operation Pipesmoke performed thousands of operations for all branches of United States Forces and Free World Forces, to include the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, The Royal Thai Regiment and the Royal Australian Air Force.

[Ztex]

Interesting...this O-1 (L-19) may still exist, or parts of it, in Thailand...If the SN is 51-7390??

http://www.thai-aviation.net/files/Tango_Squadron.pdf

Reading through that Tango Squadron pdf be on the look out for 7390...looks like the wings were used for one aircraft and the radio or panel was used for another....


It also show up in this Thai Army pdf....

O-1A 7390 51-7390 22129*
Noted wfu at Lopburi Jan-01; to
‘Tango’ Saraburi; then to ‘Tango’
Saraburi Aero Park by Apr-07

http://www.thai-aviation.net/files/Army.pdf

Cool Photo!

[david layne]

That is very interesting, thanks for posting.

Here is another view of the aircraft but no numbers in view.

[david layne]

Here is how we found it.




And how we hauled it out.

[david layne]

Our Battalion was responsible for the maintenance and repair of 1000 aircraft. On any given day there were 50 aircraft in our shops undergoing routine maintenance and or battle damage repair. In addition some units were shipped to the United States for repair.

In the South China Sea cruising up and down the Vietnam coast was a floating maintenace facility called the Corpus Christi. The vessel was equipped with a 50'x150' helicopter landing pad. With the introduction of the Corpus Christi into the theatre the shipping of units to the United States for repair ceased.

[Django]

Neat pics. Thanks for posting them.

[david layne]

I thought I had included a couple of pictures of our Chinook but apparently not so will fix that now.

This is our Chinook. As can be seen from the images on the side she has carried out many extractions.