Note to Jafo.

Yes....and then you were worth your weight in gold...

The Vietnam saw the rise to prominence of ECM's....and therefore the Pilot was no longer the omnipotent entity..

"State your height and position"

"I'm six feet tall and sitting in the front of the plane"...

[My all-time fave aircraft is a Thud, BTW]...

I left EWO training with orders for the Thud Weasel squadron at Korat, Thailand. A Major with friends in the right places walzed off with my assignment, and I had to choose between gunships at Ubon Rachatani, or a nuc alert B-52 at Minot, North Dakota. The decision took about 20 milliseconds. Even today there are few aircraft that can keep up with a Thud running full burn at treetop level. And the engine they had would eat golfball sized shrapnel and keep going.

You might want to check one of my walls I have up, here...couple a Thuds....originally a water-colour I did about 30 years ago, since 'modded' in PSP...
One reason I have for one day getting to the US is to catch up with a Thud in the flesh...

hey Bangkock boy were you AFSOC?

I got out of USAF in '84 and don't recognize the acronym.
Short summary:
Tactical Air Command, Special Operations (Spectres) 15 months
Strategic Air Command (B-52s) 10 years
Detachment of HQ SAC (Simulator s/w developer) 2 years

Not very exciting I'm afraid!

Got the Thud wall - momentarily speechless. Thanks!

I'm sorry yeah you were it wasn't a seperate command yet. Now its Air Force Special Operations Command. You were classified as an air commando. Does that ring a bell? Hulburt Field is headquarters for the spectres now as part of AFSOC. The reason I was asking is I'm part of air force spec ops. I've got a dx zoomer out the and a logon screen with the new air force logo That you may like to have. Thank you for serving in the greatest air force in the world. Yeah cheesy but sincere.

here's another artist's rendering of the thud. Hope you like. http://www.af.mil/photos/images/art_fighters_f105_0001.jpg

Thank you Zachary, that is indeed another great wall! I have lots of wallpapers I made from gunship photos, a few from B-52s (I pretty much hated the awful beasts), but nothing really good of the 105's. Until today! We did all of our gunship predeployment training at good ol' Hurlburt Field, but weren't considered Air Commandos back then. The four F-4 fighter squadrons at Ubon hated us passionately. (The gunships would rack up more Battle Damage Assessment every month than all four F-4 squadrons combined, and we were the only people on the flightline allowed to wear black baseball caps ). Spec Ops has a great tradition, and I wish you the best of everything as you carry the flag for us now.

Great pic, Zachary...[I'll lose some of the white and turn it into a wall]...

Closest I ever came to flying/Air Force was talking to the pilots who did the dump and burn over Adelaide in the F111 during the Australian GrandPrix....when the Pilot introduced me to his Ex, and I said "ah, you're his Jafo", the reaction was priceless, and yes, I still have my teeth...

Jafo,
There's a small air museum at the business airport in Addison, Tx. (Dallas suburb). The owners acquired a 105 about 4 yrs ago and restored (sans engine). That is one big airplane yet ver sleek and beautiful. Way ahead of its time.

(sorry excuse me, passing through)

Hello crocodile dundee (Well the thread says "note to Jafo"

Hi Doreen! Thanks MichaelO - that's only a few hours from me, and I'm going to take a look next time I head north. The 105 really is bigger than it looks in pictures. I got one ride in a Thud. The takeoff roll was rather lengthy, and when the afterburner kicked in it seemed to go from no-burner to full-burner in one big jolting bang. The pilot had mentioned that before takeoff so I wasn't too surprised. The 105 handled beatifully at normal speeds, but mushed somewhat pulling out of steep dives. This one had a modified center of gravity ( they were working on the dive pullout behavior), and we did steep dives/pullouts for the first 30 minutes (not fun, I wasn't wearing a G-suit!). The rest of the ride was great fun.

I hate you, BKB...
I bought Janes' USAF just so I could fly a 105...

I even have a copy of 'Thud Ridge'....a game so old it's on 2 5.25" floppies....

Best way to get a handle on its 'size' is that it was the largest, heaviest single-engine aircraft at the time, and carried more ordinance than a Flying Fortress [bomber]...


[Hi, Doreen...XXXXXXXXXXXX]

5.25 floppy! I'am not sure if I still have any of those. If I do, I don't have a drive for them.

I smell a Texan around here I'm from Ft. Worth

Zachary, your profile says South Carolina. Which is it. I'am in Ft. Worth. By the way, there are quit a few Texans on this site.

I wasn't born in Texas but I got here as fast as I could. Seguin here (just outside San Antonio).

jcg, do you still have your boat? There's a storm comming your way, so they say. I guess you've dried out since the last one.(I hope)

You're right about the Texans Zachary. Rosenberg near Houston.
Jafo - we used to have a saying that you could build a runway to any length, and Republic could build you an airplane that would take every inch of it for takeoff.
The Thuds would occasionally get jumped by trigger-happy F-4 jockeys who flunked aircraft identification classes. Not able to directly outmaneuver the F-4s, the 105s would dive to the treetops and light the burners. The F-4s soon disappeared at 6 o'clock.
The ride I missed was the SR-71 Blackbird. Had a ride set up out of Beale AFB in Sep 70, got all the way to suiting up in the spacesuit when the SR left to photo some crisis at the Korean DMZ. I was crushed for weeks! I'm afraid this threadborne stroll down memory lane has turned into a walkabout!

My wife is stationed here in South Carolina at Shaw AFB USAF. However I was born and raised in Texas and I still am apart of the Texas Air National Guard at Ft. Worth at Carswell. I travel back and forth once a month. Here in South Carolina I still proudly fly my Texas flag in the front yard.

BKB...I've read that about Republic....[I have the odd book or ten]...

Now, just don't tell me you've seen the XB 70 in the flesh as well....

Negative on the XB70. We have a radically modified Gulfstream II jet with Space Shuttle Controls and flight instruments in the left half of the cockpit. All of the flight controls and the engine throttles are controlled by computers onboard, and the student shuttle pilot is in effect playing a video game while the computers fly the plane. The computers make the Gulfsteam do exactly what the Shuttle would do with the given control inputs. The Shuttle is a 200,000 lb glider with nasty handling characteristics, and a shuttle pilot will often fly several hundred penetrations and landings in our plane before he/she gets to land the real thing. Mission Control, and our shop are the only ones outside the astronaut office who get crew mission patches for each mission. Fun job most of the time.

What Jafo would probably really enjoy is a trip to the museum (Air Force) at Wright-Patterson. Makes the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum look small. I remember driving by as a kid (Dark ages) and there was a burned out B-52 sitting at the end of a runway you could see from the road. Also they have a B-36 (talk about big) in all its glory amongst just about every other aircraft you can think of.

The museum at Wright-Patt really is a "must see".