The Heritage Air Museum tours with a nicely restored C-123 Provider, an airplane most people have never seen or even heard of. In this AVweb video shot at AirVenture, the Museum's Jack McMahon tells us all about the airplane.
I was a Security Policeman at Tan Son Nhut AB Viet Nam for a year. Worked Flightline patrol a number of times! Parked my Jeep within feet of the 123's while a buddy was pumping Agent Orange from 50 gallon drums to the spray tanks on the 123's! Stuff was leaking all over the tarmac. But to hear those birds taking off with huge radials and then roar like a jet was amazing. Saw a C119 Shadow Gunship lose a propeller on takeoff at 2300 hours and dive into a swamp just off the AB. All 9 aboard KIA. It was hours before the rescue crews could get close to the impact site due to ammo and flares cooking off! May they all RIP!
I arrived in-country Vietnam December 1970 my first fight was on a C-123 out of Cam Ranh Bay they used the Jet assist on take off to gain altitude, to DaNang Main Air Force Base. I was a Crew Chief on UH-1C Hueys Gunships with the 282nd Assault Helicopter Company Black Cats & Alley Cats 3rd Platoon Alley Cats @ Marble Mountain Airfield, DaNang, Vietnam.
We had 20+ C123k in the Philippines air force right after Vietnam. Jato take off was really a blast. It goes idle on taxi, with the flick of two toggle the jato goes full 100% then hang on.
I was a Flare Kicker out of DaNang in 66. I dropped flares with the 311th Air Commando sq for 3 1/2 months until my boss found out (I was a personnel Specialist (73250) and politely asked me to quit because He did not want to write a letter for a typist. Anyway, I received a DFC, AM (47 missions) & AFCM during those days I flew. I haven't seen once since I left in Dec 66. Loudest engine in the USAF inventory, need hearing aids since then.
One of my best buddies in the Air Force, Loadmaster Sargent Milton Jackson Bush (Milt) was killed, along with the rest of his crew, when their C123 crashed near Bien Hoa Airbase shortly after takeoff after being hit by Viet Cong ground fire in May, 1969. Milt was a Georgia native, a gentleman, and an all around great guy in his 22nd year of life. He had been in Vietnam less than two months. He was a patriot who volunteered for that mission. R. I. P. Milt.
Good on you guys! Love the 119 and 123, both are orphan airplanes that need to get more respect. John T Halliday wrote a great book called Flying Through Midnight about flying 123s in Laos.
We had the famous Agent Orange sprayer C-123 called "Patches" at LG Hanscom Field while I was there in the 1970's. We also used them to spray various chemicals over Tinker AFB during one of our fog clearing experiments during the same time frame. One item was so corrosive that when a pipe burst inside the fuselage a fire truck was driven up to the ramp and actually hosed down the inside of the plane. Think about that for a moment. Someone actually approved spraying a chemical that dissolves aircraft over an airfield!! Later over Northern California, we dumped something called "polyelectrolyte" out of a converted DC-3 that made everything so slippery you could hardly walk and that also shorted out all electrical equipment to the point where even the car radios refused to work. It went down into a motel parking lot on the trip home after the experiment ended.
I had one hosed out at Tan Son Nhut after an old man’s bottle of nhuc mam broke on takeoff from Phuc Quoc, and ran across the cargo compartment floor. Fireman went back to the truck for an air pack after he took 2 steps into the cargo compartment.
Summer of 1981. Jump School Ft. Benning. My first jump was out of a C-123. Instructors said it was the last time this particular C-123 was going to be used. It was retiring after this flight. They called it the flying boxcar! Scared as all hell; it rattled like a boxcar all right!
My dad's first cousin was a wing commander (?) in Viet Nam for a unit of C123's. His name was Guiher Gene Greenwood. He has been deceased for several years. I sure wish he was around so I could ask him about the units he was in and where in Viet Nam he served.
I volunteer at Castle Air Museum (based out Merced, CA.at the former "Castle Air force Base.") We have one of these on display! it's an awesome aircraft!
Great video! My dad was a pilot in Viet Nam flying the AC-119 in Phan Rang. He said the 123's were there to spread agent orange. As a kid, I wanted one. :-)
The Ranch Hands (the spray birds) were one squadron that operated out of Bien Hoa. There was a freight squadron at Tan Son Nhut (19th SOS), another at Danang and one or two at the Wing HQ at Phan Rang, near Cam Ranh Bay. During the rainy season, they took the spray tanks out of the spray planes and used them for cargo. I was there.
I remember seeing them flying out of Rickenbacker/Lockbourne in central Ohio in the 70s. To a kid they always looked odd with that raised tail, slow lumbering speed and the sound of their droning engines.
@Are Dee Westmoreland had left before I got to Nam. We were assigned to base flight and did VIP runs. A Scott Tagg, his father was crew chief while I was there, had developed a web site a few years ago but has pulled it down. He had several shots of the early days in the early 60’s days showing several high profile passengers.
