C-130 Hercules flying along the South Vietnamese coast.
Amidst the chaotic
withdrawal of American forces from Saigon in April 1975, a young man in
the South Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF), Tinh Nguyen, peered out from a
bunker at Tan Son Nhut Air Base. The airfield had been under North
Vietnamese mortar fire all night and more than 100 aircraft had been
destroyed. But there was still one
flyable C-130A (the initial production version). During a lull in the
firing, it taxied toward the runway navigating around the smoking
debris.
This massive plane's rear ramp was still open with a crowd of people huddling on it, and Nguyen knew he had to get to it.
"It was either leave right then or stay and get killed."
More @ Popular Mechanics
Thank you for this! I only flew once on the C-130. What a freakin' airplane. Sitting on nets, rumbling like hell... had to pee like a racehorse by the time we landed.
ReplyDelete:) !
Delete