I was looking through the SF Web site a couple of days ago and saw some interesting pictures. One was of my original airplane 51-12886 (Martha B - Rommel of the Delta) and the other was one of the pictures in Gary Simon's photo gallery. I wrote an Email concerning the way 886 got it's name (Named after my "then" wife and Rommel (My beloved Dog) but I'm not sure if it got to the right person or if anyone even cares. The picture in Gary's area was of the revetments at Ben Tre showing the SF name and the Prop. I was the one that put that prop there so know the story. Maybe the historian cares about this sort of stuff.

 

At any rate, we were putting in an airstrike using A-1 Sky Radiers when on took a round through his oil cooler. He knew couldn't make it home so he elected to put in at Ben Tre. He landed hot and seeing he couldn't stop, lifted off, raised the grear and put in down on it's belly. Thankfully, he slid to the end of the runway so we could still land and take off (carefully). The aircraft remained over night and the next day the Air Force came in, jacked it up, cranked the gear down and towed it into our parking area. There they changed the prop, oil cooler, added oil, cranked it and flew it home with the gear down. Actually, there was very little damage to the under belly.

 

A few days latter, I decided the prop would look good standing against the revetment so Mike Agler, Rodney (can't remember his last name) and, I think, Heinz and I tried to drag the prop out of the grass. Do you have any idea how much that thing weighed? We finally got a duce and a half to drag it to the revetment where the four mentioned men plus two Air Force FAC's stood it where it was pictured in Gary Simon's photo.

 

It's great to see all those pictures except for the one's in Terry Mathews section showing my old airplane 51-12886 after a ground loop in Campodia and to find out it was destroyed after being dropped. Oh well, I would never be able to fly it again anyway.

 

 

Joe B. Swift