From 1977 until the Canal Zone was handed back to the Panamanians in 1999, there was a Central/South American airlift mission first known as Volant Oak and later, Coronet Oak. C-130's, primarily Guard/Reserve, would deploy to Howard AB, Panama for two-week stints to provide theatre airlift. Some of us went a few times a year and became somewhat "regulars" flying in that part of the world. The mission has changed dramatically, continues, and has since moved, but I'll save that story for another time.
One of our regular counter-drug stops was to support the radar site at Araracuara, CO. We moved personnel, supplies, cash couriers, and also tankered fuel to be downloaded into bladders at the runway's edge. The compound there was heavily fortified and guarded; we called it "Vietnam with cable".
The runway was probably 4000'-ish and perched on a breathtaking plateau. It was mostly dirt/gravel with broken asphalt-like segments. The local radar site (Moonlit Control, IIRC) could provide advisories, but I recall that to land, self-contained approaches were done to find the field in IMC. There was an NDB there that never would point, so we "built" the approach with INS waypoints and mirrored the NDB procedure; we didn't have GPS at the time. The Nav's would also be able to paint the unique runway on the APN-59 radar.
I never would have believed at the time that there would be a thing called youtube and these "unique" experiences could be shared. The best way to describe the airport is to watch this video. On the left side of the runway, look for the shape of a wrecked C-46:
http://youtu.be/TqlGcoptmqcAlso see this pic online:
http://www.alltravels.com/colombia/amaz ... o-63777107Here's how the C-46 looked in September 1996:
The big treat for visiting crews was to pile in a deuce and a half and ride to the approach end of the runway. From there, it was a 5 minute walk to the gorge. The photo doesn't do the scale of this gorge justice, nor does it provide the soft roar of the Amazon tributary below.
Here's our Herk on an earlier visit in June 1993. We've landed and made a 180 to park at the defuel pit. We always landed and departed one-way. This was the textbook example for shortfield data where, between refusal speed and 3-engine Vmca, you really needed to try to fly her off, since running off the end into boulders (and then falling into the gorge) wasn't an option. The OV-10 is Colombian and reportedly had scored a number drug run kills on alert scrambles.
I was told that this place had once been a prison due to its remote location. I know it was a military site in the 90's and I was told that it was since closed and disabled with explosives, although I don't know if that is true. Flying the C-130 has been far more interesting and educational that I ever dreamed it would be - this type of flying was truly "off the grid" - the IFR charts were brown and some of the TPC charts sported white sections, devoid of info, that simply said "data not available, elevations approximate".
"Trash hauling" may sound boring, but most folks don't know the half of it.
Ken
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