Typhoon Lucy, July 1971
My squadron commander's daughter Christie lived in the same town as my
fiance Gloria. Christie needed an adult escort to and from Taiwan
and we were able to synchronize schedules so Gloria could escort her
and I could take some leave at
CCK.
The day before they returned to the States I got the call.
"Typhoon Lucy is heading for Taiwan and the C-130's must get off the
island. You and your crew are flying one to Thailand." I
made arrangements for a friend to see Gloria off then I
took an airplane to
Tan
Son
Nhut and on to
U-Tapao.
Typhoon
Lucy
missed
Taiwan but so began my last Thailand
shuttle.
Not a bad schedule
in all--8
days
of
flying and 4 days on alert. All the flights were
scheduled (kind of), all the airfields were paved, and nobody was
shooting at us.
Circling Instrument Approach, July 22, 1971
A long day--15 hours. We flew up to northwest Thailand and had to
orbit for
a half hour waiting for an instrument approach into Chiang Mai.
When we returned to U-Tapao we needed work on our radar, a brake, and
fuel panel. We also had a mysterious engine problem so we took
along an engine specialist to observe for the next few legs.
Onward to
Ubon,
where
weather
was
deteriorating
(700' overcast), the only navaid
available was
primitive (
ADF),
and
the
winds were in the wrong direction for their
one ADF approach. So I did a
circling instrument approach,
which
worked
like
this...
- Descend westbound in the clouds and cross the ADF at 4000'.
- Turn south and descend to 2000' in the clouds.
- Turn left 180 degrees and descend to 700' in the clouds
as if you were going to land to the north.
- When you see the field, maintain 700' and fly visual downwind,
base, and final legs, then land to the south. Interesting
approach.
At
Bangkok
one landing light burned out and we couldn't start the #3
engine. The engine specialist diagnosed the problem and we waited
6 hours for a part to be flown in. Long day.
Flameout, July 28, 1970
We had a pretty uneventful mission carrying cargo to Bangkok and
Udorn.
On
our
last
leg
into U-Tapao I was doing a night
Ground-Controlled
Approach when the #4 engine tachometer started
unwinding. That got my attention--the engine just
flamed
out for no
reason! I feathered #4 (making sure that it was indeed the failed
one), went missed approach, ran some
checklists, and made a 3-engine landing. Strange.
