> In a message to Jim Cole  David Kirschbaum
 > wrote:
 DK>> That Flying Tigers 707 that mistakenly landed on an Army
 DK>> chopper strip just south of the DaNang main runway probably
 DK>> holds the record
 DK>> for short field work :-)  Anyone remember that?  1969, I believe.  I
 DK>> understand the Huey that was hovering over the little strip
 DK>> at the time got quite a shock when the door gunner cleared
 DK>> to the rear and reported a 707 on short final :-)
 > Dave,
 > That was the airfield our sister platoon used.  It was Marble
 > Mountain.  I recall it being East of DaNang main, but it could
 > have been North-East.
I only got up to DaNang once (hitched a ride in a VNAF KingBee to visit a 
buddy at the CCN camp there S of DaNang).  Thought I remembered seeing that 
little strip that was oriented the same as the big runway(s?) at DaNang, but 
can't be sure it was the same one.
 >  I also recall it was a stretch DC-8.  I
Now I can't even remember if the Stars and Stripes had a photo.
 > didn't get to see it, but according to the folks from the other
 > platoon they just pushed it backward and it took off from
 > there.  The passengers and baggage were unloaded, but no fuel
 > was removed.
That's what someone up there who watched some of the process told me; that 
the aircraft managed to stop (brakes smoking, I'm sure) with the nose wheel 
just off the end of the strip.  And they pushed her back to the other end of 
the strip for the (successfully!) attempted takeoff.  I was under the 
impression she took off the next day early in the morning though; they wanted 
cool air, time for pilot to calm down, etc. :-)
 >  The aircraft came in at night.
Ah, never heard that at all.
 >  DaNang main and
 > Marble Mountain both had North South runways.  I'm going to
 > venture a guess that they were maybe 2 miles from each other,
 > possibly 3.
Yeah, that's what I thought too.
 >  At any rate, the plane took off the next day.
Right.
 > Everyone was gathered at the end of the runway with their
 > cameras so they could record the crash they knew was going to
 > occur.  They were relieved or disappointed depending on their
 > orientation when the airplane lifted about 2/3 of the way down
 > the runway.  They said it was very unexciting.  --  Marble
 > Mountain wasn't just a helicopter field.  I don't know what the
 > biggest aircraft that went in there was, but it was home to an
 > OV-1 unit.
Oh, I didn't know that about being an OV-1 field too.  I was under the 
impression it was just a strip supporting choppers .. and those fields can 
_certainly_ be "nonchalant" about a lot of things (like runway surface, 
strength, etc.)
 > I hope that helped.  My memory is getting fuzzy on a lot of the
 > detail from then, so I hope I didn't give you too much bad
 > information.  Funny.  Things I thought I would never forget are
 > starting to fade.
Yeah, me too.  Hope somebody's writing all this stuff down.
---
---------------