CIA Vietnam war controlled USAF aircraft missions

bingo you are spot on see it has happened...everyhting you said below
reminds me of the story the guy told me, he said i rember now INS was
set but thats all that was needed...

Smartace11 wrote:

Those Vark pilots would have a heck of a time operating the weapons panel on
the right.

How about the Phantom pilot operating the *rear seat* equipment?
In 1972, I flew night triple turn missions out of Tahkli - one sortie out of
Tahkli in Laos, N and S Vietnam recover at Danang, reload/rearm, do it again,
recover at Danang and do it again then go home. Occaisionally we recovered at
Udorn because it was closer than Danang when we were operating in nothern Laos
around the PDJ.

I saw an black F-4s once at Udorn taxi past the dearm area when I recovered
there one night. Couldn't tell how many crew members. Maybe not black but one
dark color all over - the camo paint scheme was visible at night in that
scenario once you got some night vision and had the fuselage belly lights on
for the weapoins guys to pin you back up. The F-4 could be operated by one
crewmember - the INS just had to be aligned before taxi. Dropping nukes was
about the only thing that supposedly couldn't be done alone though I guess one
could enable the PAL stuff on the ground before TO.

There were also rumors floating around of the existance of the black F-4s but
few had actually seen them. Never heard anything about F-111s though the
F-111As out of Nellis that replaced us could have flown that mission.

When we worked at night in Laos we were usually under the control of a Nightowl
FAC, an F-4 Fast FAC with Loran and plenty of flares. Once in a while we
worked with a Raven but I have no idea what type of aircraft, their usual O-1
or something else. Sometimes a Specter on the trails would control us. Very
few times, Moonbeam the ABCCC ship wold turn us over to the Combat Skyspot guys
to drop from their ground radar.

Working in Laos at night was spooky. Like flying inside an ink bottle as there
was just a campfire here and there and few if any other lights on the ground.
Little or no horizon under the haze. The FAC would lay down a "log" that
burned on the ground for a while and we would attempt to use it as an aiming
point. Hard enough to gage "100 meters north of my smoke" in the daytime but a
real trick at night.

Definitely enjoyed night flying as there was little or no adult supervision
around. Plus it was a helluva lot cooler. Doubtless, the missions were in
support of the Lima recon sites there and possibly the BMT TACAN though it had
been overrun when I was there..

Steve