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Thanks for these images, Mike!
Great to see that old C-123. My across-the-street neighbor for the past 30 years was an avionics mechanic on Operation RANCH HAND (Agent Orange) C-123s at Ton Sa Nhut during the Vietnam War.
When I was in Vietnam 1966-1967, the occasional C-123 would come into the Tra Vinh airfield near where the Vietnamese infantry battalion I advised was located. We used to say that the C-123 was a machine designed to turn jet fuel into noise.
I have one poignant C-123 story that I may have told elsewhere in the Forum. Some time in the spring of 1967 we were operating in Long Thành (now Duyên Hải) District near the South China Sea Coast. It was a pleasant, peaceful day as we moved across the paddies and dry fields. We heard aircraft engines and saw, off to our right, three C-123s in formation over the tree line heading south. A few kilometers south of us they made a wide shallow turn to the left, dropped down to just above the trees, and began spraying Agent Orange.
SFC Baker, my assistant adviser was monitoring the radio and suddenly said, "The pilot in the lead aircraft was just killed. The co-pilot reported that he was hit in the head by a bullet from groundfire."
The three C-123s continued to fly through the sky, rising and turning to return to TSN as if nothing had happened.
Don
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