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#1
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Neptune at Dubbo
Bob Moore wrote:
CWO4 Dave Mann wrote I am wondering if the "flash bulb" P2V was something special cooked up for Vietnam. We had two of them flying out of Da Nang with US Army crews on board. That was from mid-1965 to -mid 1967. The US Army operated AP-2E (P2V-5F) ECM aircraft from Cam Rahn Bay (67-72), the Navy operated OP-2E with machine gun pods from Nakhon Phanon, Thailand, and the Navy operated AP-2H armed ECM aircraft along the Ho Chi Minh Trail from 1967 to 1969. Bob Moore Thanks for the corrective info Bob ... nothing like 40 years to muddle the puddle! Cheers, Dave |
#2
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Neptune at Dubbo
CWO4 Dave Mann wrote
I am wondering if the "flash bulb" P2V was something special cooked up for Vietnam. We had two of them flying out of Da Nang with US Army crews on board. That was from mid-1965 to -mid 1967. The US Army operated AP-2E (P2V-5F) ECM aircraft from Cam Rahn Bay (67-72), the Navy operated OP-2E with machine gun pods from Nakhon Phanon, Thailand, and the Navy operated AP-2H armed ECM aircraft along the Ho Chi Minh Trail from 1967 to 1969. Bob Moore |
#3
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Neptune at Dubbo
CWO4 Dave Mann wrote:
Bob Moore wrote: CWO4 Dave Mann wrote This looks like the photo recon version with the zillion candlepower strobes in the wing tips. Rare bird. The Mohawk had a similar system only the strobe light was under the fuselage. Nope! Just the standard 30 million candle power, copilot controlled, searchlight mounted on the starboard side only. It's a standard SP-2H of the RAAF. There is a photo of its sistership number 81 on page 240 of Wayne Mutza's "Lockheed P2V NEPTUNE, An Illustrated History" Bob Moore VP-21, SP-2H, 1959-1962 PanAm (retired) I am wondering if the "flash bulb" P2V was something special cooked up for Vietnam. We had two of them flying out of Da Nang with US Army crews on board. That was from mid-1965 to -mid 1967. The US Air Force really agitated against the Army flying any aircraft over a certain gross weight, capacity, speed, etc. Air Force folks got real nervous when we fielded the OV1D Mohawk with rockets and then gun pods under the wings on the hard points. Made us take off the weapons and have only drop flares on the hard-points. That was the same time as the Caribou controversy and Knock-Down Bitch-Slapping on the Pentagon E-Ring about the Army having "cargo capacity". Our lovely Boo's went away with USAF markings. The Army's SIGINT assets managed to get away with some other platforms, as NSA used their clout. The SIGINT birds flew with Army markings except for the odd C47 with "civilian" registry. The Mohawk flash-bulb was cool since when it flew a mission on a moonless night, the flash made an almost perfectly square illuminated footprint on the ground. It was like the Hand of G-d to the VC I suppose. Only trouble was that the imagery was not real-time and it usually took a 24-hour period to get the B52's overhead and by that time the dinks had moved on to someplace else. Of course they also had the radio relays from their interception sites near Guam which relayed real-time B52 flight information back to the North Vietnam High Command. Cheers, Dave I love those old Mohawks. They were phasing the last of them out in the '70s IIRC. The Bronco may have been better, but there is something about that bug-eyed look that I like. -- Heaven is where the police are British, the chefs Italian, the mechanics German, the lovers French and it is all organized by the Swiss. Hell is where the police are German, the chefs British, the mechanics French, the lovers Swiss and it is all organized by Italians. http://new.photos.yahoo.com/paul1cart/albums/ |
#4
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Neptune at Dubbo
CWO4 Dave Mann wrote:
Bob Moore wrote: CWO4 Dave Mann wrote This looks like the photo recon version with the zillion candlepower strobes in the wing tips. Rare bird. The Mohawk had a similar system only the strobe light was under the fuselage. Nope! Just the standard 30 million candle power, copilot controlled, searchlight mounted on the starboard side only. It's a standard SP-2H of the RAAF. There is a photo of its sistership number 81 on page 240 of Wayne Mutza's "Lockheed P2V NEPTUNE, An Illustrated History" Bob Moore VP-21, SP-2H, 1959-1962 PanAm (retired) I am wondering if the "flash bulb" P2V was something special cooked up for Vietnam. We had two of them flying out of Da Nang with US Army crews on board. That was from mid-1965 to -mid 1967. The US Air Force really agitated against the Army flying any aircraft over a certain gross weight, capacity, speed, etc. Air Force folks got real nervous when we fielded the OV1D Mohawk with rockets and then gun pods under the wings on the hard points. Made us take off the weapons and have only drop flares on the hard-points. That was the same time as the Caribou controversy and Knock-Down Bitch-Slapping on the Pentagon E-Ring about the Army having "cargo capacity". Our lovely Boo's went away with USAF markings. The Army's SIGINT assets managed to get away with some other platforms, as NSA used their clout. The SIGINT birds flew with Army markings except for the odd C47 with "civilian" registry. The Mohawk flash-bulb was cool since when it flew a mission on a moonless night, the flash made an almost perfectly square illuminated footprint on the ground. It was like the Hand of G-d to the VC I suppose. Only trouble was that the imagery was not real-time and it usually took a 24-hour period to get the B52's overhead and by that time the dinks had moved on to someplace else. Of course they also had the radio relays from their interception sites near Guam which relayed real-time B52 flight information back to the North Vietnam High Command. Cheers, Dave I love those old Mohawks. They were phasing the last of them out in the '70s IIRC. The Bronco may have been better, but there is something about that bug-eyed look that I like. -- Heaven is where the police are British, the chefs Italian, the mechanics German, the lovers French and it is all organized by the Swiss. Hell is where the police are German, the chefs British, the mechanics French, the lovers Swiss and it is all organized by Italians. http://new.photos.yahoo.com/paul1cart/albums/ |
#5
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Neptune at Dubbo
Bob Moore wrote:
CWO4 Dave Mann wrote This looks like the photo recon version with the zillion candlepower strobes in the wing tips. Rare bird. The Mohawk had a similar system only the strobe light was under the fuselage. Nope! Just the standard 30 million candle power, copilot controlled, searchlight mounted on the starboard side only. It's a standard SP-2H of the RAAF. There is a photo of its sistership number 81 on page 240 of Wayne Mutza's "Lockheed P2V NEPTUNE, An Illustrated History" Bob Moore VP-21, SP-2H, 1959-1962 PanAm (retired) I am wondering if the "flash bulb" P2V was something special cooked up for Vietnam. We had two of them flying out of Da Nang with US Army crews on board. That was from mid-1965 to -mid 1967. The US Air Force really agitated against the Army flying any aircraft over a certain gross weight, capacity, speed, etc. Air Force folks got real nervous when we fielded the OV1D Mohawk with rockets and then gun pods under the wings on the hard points. Made us take off the weapons and have only drop flares on the hard-points. That was the same time as the Caribou controversy and Knock-Down Bitch-Slapping on the Pentagon E-Ring about the Army having "cargo capacity". Our lovely Boo's went away with USAF markings. The Army's SIGINT assets managed to get away with some other platforms, as NSA used their clout. The SIGINT birds flew with Army markings except for the odd C47 with "civilian" registry. The Mohawk flash-bulb was cool since when it flew a mission on a moonless night, the flash made an almost perfectly square illuminated footprint on the ground. It was like the Hand of G-d to the VC I suppose. Only trouble was that the imagery was not real-time and it usually took a 24-hour period to get the B52's overhead and by that time the dinks had moved on to someplace else. Of course they also had the radio relays from their interception sites near Guam which relayed real-time B52 flight information back to the North Vietnam High Command. Cheers, Dave |
#6
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Neptune at Dubbo
CWO4 Dave Mann wrote
This looks like the photo recon version with the zillion candlepower strobes in the wing tips. Rare bird. The Mohawk had a similar system only the strobe light was under the fuselage. Nope! Just the standard 30 million candle power, copilot controlled, searchlight mounted on the starboard side only. It's a standard SP-2H of the RAAF. There is a photo of its sistership number 81 on page 240 of Wayne Mutza's "Lockheed P2V NEPTUNE, An Illustrated History" Bob Moore VP-21, SP-2H, 1959-1962 PanAm (retired) |
#7
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Neptune at Dubbo
CWO4 Dave Mann wrote:
This looks like the photo recon version with the zillion candlepower strobes in the wing tips. Rare bird. The Mohawk had a similar system only the strobe light was under the fuselage. Cheers, Dave that's gotta make for interesting flying at night..... redc1c4, (a *little* too exciting for me. %-) -- "Enlisted men are stupid, but extremely cunning and sly, and bear considerable watching." Army Officer's Guide |
#8
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Neptune at Dubbo
redc1c4 wrote:
CWO4 Dave Mann wrote: This looks like the photo recon version with the zillion candlepower strobes in the wing tips. Rare bird. The Mohawk had a similar system only the strobe light was under the fuselage. Cheers, Dave that's gotta make for interesting flying at night..... redc1c4, (a *little* too exciting for me. %-) Hey Red, yes I imagine it was. I've been on the ground when we had an IMINT mission come over and it was really creepy, like one of those disco dance places during the 1970's with the strobes. You could see it at Ft Huachuca, AZ all the time, almost every night. Looked like the mothership beaming down. I wonder now why they didn't design in an infrared system, but then the only thing I know about the OV1 family is that it was so ugly it was beautiful. High performance bug ... Cheers, Dave |
#9
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Neptune at Dubbo
redc1c4 wrote:
CWO4 Dave Mann wrote: This looks like the photo recon version with the zillion candlepower strobes in the wing tips. Rare bird. The Mohawk had a similar system only the strobe light was under the fuselage. Cheers, Dave that's gotta make for interesting flying at night..... redc1c4, (a *little* too exciting for me. %-) Hey Red, yes I imagine it was. I've been on the ground when we had an IMINT mission come over and it was really creepy, like one of those disco dance places during the 1970's with the strobes. You could see it at Ft Huachuca, AZ all the time, almost every night. Looked like the mothership beaming down. I wonder now why they didn't design in an infrared system, but then the only thing I know about the OV1 family is that it was so ugly it was beautiful. High performance bug ... Cheers, Dave |
#10
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Neptune at Dubbo
I remember when we were testing the OV-1 strobes in Vung Tau way back
when... JT CWO4 Dave Mann wrote: This looks like the photo recon version with the zillion candlepower strobes in the wing tips. Rare bird. The Mohawk had a similar system only the strobe light was under the fuselage. Cheers, Dave |
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