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On another forum some Army pilots mentioned the Caribou, to which I replied:
I rode in a Caribou up to Pleiku to pick up a Charlie Model gunship. My only time in Pleiku. We flew out of TSN and they didn't want to let my gunner on with his M-60. I said we might need that 60 on the way back and if the 60 didn't go, nobody went. I think we were the only Americans with one piece flight suits at Pleiku. The flight suits got more attention than the M-60. A few people asked why we had one pice flight suits and I said it was because we ate out of Navy chow halls and we didn't need to drop our drawers as often.
The Charlie Model had been used hard and they had taken some of the instruments out of it, but I had a real instrument ticket and knew how to fly partial panel should a cloud attack us. I had one of those vinyl maps of the northern half of Vietnam. We just flew down the road to the ocean, hung a right and flew down the coast to Cam Ranh Bay for our first fuel stop. I found out later that day that it was not a good idea to low level down that road. As soon as we got to Binh Thuy we put in a TACAN and a radar altimeter, The other instruments could wait a while.
That's my Boo story and I'm stickin to it.
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