Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Gone but not forgotten the C-7 Boo

I was in Viet Nam on C-130's for several years and always thought it would be cool to take a ride on one of the C-7's, but never had the time.
The first time I saw one other than at CRB, was at Katum and was having a hell of time landing into a strong wind. Looked like it was not moving.
Like they say, "real planes have props"..

I certainly don't have "fond memories" especially after Ranch Hand missions..They were dripping A Orange everywhere. The fire Dept did its best to hose off the taxiways however most of it went into grassy areas which eventually turned brown even after being diluted.

Over 3.5 million liters of Agent Orange were located on the Phu Cat Air Base during Vietnam. Several areas of the Phu Cat base were found to have elevated levels of dioxin requiring remediation (above 1000 ppt in soil or 150 ppt in sediment).

It's a wonder I don't have a third eye !

I flew on them a couple of times n Nam. They seemed to be somewhat unstable - always wagging left and right. I thought they were cool with that hatch on top where a crewman could stand up in when moving about on the ground.

Thanks for posting this, Woody.

Here's a link to the Caribou website, tons of pix etc from Vietnam.

http://www.c-7acaribou.com/

The AFRes units at Westover and Pittsburg had them. They'd take a weekend trip down to Patrick AFB, FL and stop on Sundays going home. Top off the gas and 15 gal of oil in each engine.

When I was at Bragg sometimes they had weekend fun jumps. I got just a couple C7 jumps. Tailgate. What a blast!

Now that I think about it, it WAS the Buffalo. It and the Caribou are so much alike, my brain says "Caribou". Still, those guys in the Rescue Service up there are real studs.




My first parachute jump at Ft. Benning was out of reputedly the last C-123 in service in the USAF. It was memorable, mainly because, even as scared as we were, we were anxious to get out of that POS. I am amazed that it could even get off the ground. I think the USAF bought them to punish pilots they didn't like.

I had one in-country hitchhike ride in a C-123, and I would not have ridden in another if they told me it would take me straight to the big Freedom Bird in Saigon. Two big radial engines and two auxiliary jet engines for takeoff made such a horrific noise that it is a wonder any of their crews were not stone deaf.