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Just an anecdotal fact for a very cool thread.....the Thai guy that was the “pusher” in the beginning of the Air America movie with Mel Gibson is my wife’s Godfather and was a pusher for my father in law. His name is Chatterong (sp?) and one hell of a good guy.

Cool thread. 👍

Ken, the AWADS ("All-Weather Air Drop System") birds were hard to miss, at least from the inside- - - - -the whole floor of the cargo compartment was covered with big ball bearings in cup-shaped holders, and there was a big aluminum push bar that was on a chain drive that stretched all the way across. With the ramp down, palletized cargo could be pushed out the back quickly. Supposedly, the system was able to track an angled beam projected by a portable transmitter on the ground and hit a 100 yard diameter drop zone - - - -even through an undercast. It was basically a Bomb-Nav system for cargo.

When it worked, apparently it was very accurate. Unfortunately, it had a few gremlins that popped up on occasion, and the load landed WAY out of the drop zone. We usually dropped one pallet of rice, and 3 or more pallets of ammo. (7.62X39- - - - -nobody fired 5.56 where this stuff was supposedly going!) On occasion, it was necessary to call in some air support to keep the wrong side from getting the ammo! On one memorable occasion, as soon as the plane rolled in on the final heading, the cargo punched out the back and splashed down 5 miles offshore. The guys on the beach with their backs to the water were not happy campers!

30-something years later I was telling an Army vet friend about those planes. He said he was manning the ground station that transmitted the tracking beam for us!
Jerry

My friend just retired from the Army as a helicopter crew chief. He said his favorite jobs were ones where they only wore the blood tag on their uniforms. Said it got you out of listening to NCO's with a power trip. I forget the term he used "Blood Stripe Only" or something. He never was specific about where he was or what he was doing but he was in and out of countrys all the time with his unit.

Drover, I was at Naha from Sept 67 until March 69. When I was at Ubon it was a 90 day TDY on Blind Bat 130's. After Naha, I went straight to CCK Taiwan for 15 more months ( Vietnam every month).
At Ubon, we were considered a test bed for EC and what ever they could think of. Was Dyna Electron at Naha when you were there? Do you remember the silver C-130's?
They were E-Flight birds.
About 20 years after I got out , I met and became friends with a guy that was working at DynaElectron when I was there. Did you have a hanger of your own right next to the Squadron offices?

The world is getting smaller. Did you stay out of Naminoue?

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Ken

I left Naha in mid-'65.

I can't say that I cared much for Okinawa itself, if I hadn't previously been in Japan it would have probably been okay but it was pretty low-end in comparison to Japan. Although I did do quite a bit of snorkeling in Okinawa and really enjoyed that.

Yes, Dynalectron was there when I was there, I am very familiar with Dynalectron, they had a lot of people in that part of the world then.
Other contractor companies I recall from that era - Air Mod Corp, Land-Air Corp, LSI (Lear Siegler Inc), Raytheon, most aircraft manufacturers had some Tech Reps of course, and quite a few others that I can't think of right now.

I do remember the silver C-130's, it has been a lot of years but I seem to remember doing some modifications on them - not 100% sure though. I can't recall the hangar location I worked out of either. That has was 55 years ago, Wow!! - It is hard to believe that it was that long ago. At least until I see a picture from back then and look in a mirror - it sure makes me wonder who that young guy was and how this old guy replaced him.

Wasn't Namainoue where all the bars and short-time girls were? There again just too many years ago and a lot of places and water under the bridge since then.

I am not sure that the EC-47 program really went on very long, I suspect that the EC-130's made it obsolete pretty quickly, the C-130 was far the superior platform and to this day is still one of my favorite aircraft.

A couple of more C-47 stories from Japan - I worked one that was a "listening post" aircraft, it was out of S. Korea and it flew a race-track course just south of the DMZ, it had turbo-prop engines, and I want to remember it as having extended wings but I would't swear to the extended wings though, it had so many atennas on it that it looked like a porcupine. From a distance at a casual glance it looked like a regular C-47 but with something that was just not right about - the longer you would look the more noticable it became that there was something different about it.

We did some mods and upgrades to the C-47 that was used by Ambassador to Japan Douglas McArthur ll, that was without a doubt the most plush C-47 I have ever seen.

Yes, the internet has made the world a very small place indeed.

Thanks for helping me dredge up a lot of old forgotten memories.

drover