MovieChat Forums > Air America (1990) Discussion > Landing Strips Locations, Name

Landing Strips Locations, Name

posted 18 years ago by NicolasADurand
8 replies | jump to latest

What is the location and name of the remote landing strip? If i remember correctly, this landing strip is on the side of a mountain and on an incline plane.

[–] chris_thomson 18 years ago

Check out http://www.thaiflyingclub.com/linkairportmaesariang.html

This was used for 'Tango 7' I believe. Will take my 601 over there later this year to check it out.

Quite a few of the Thai pilots recognise all the locations in the movie, so I'll post when I find out more, I've been told the mountain strip is at Petchabun.

If you love this movie, you owe it to yourself to have a little holiday in Thailand, the Porters (PC-6's) are around, now green, and plenty of old C-123's, C-47's around that you can sit in and pretend to be Ryac or Covington...

[–] NicolasADurand 18 years ago

Thank you for the lead. I'll run with it.

Much Grass!

[–] joeresearch 18 years ago

Chris, Tango 7 was the old Jap airfield where Covington knocked down the bamboo control tower. They never gave a name or number to the "air strip" on the side of the mountain.

In '72 I was on a Huey that landed on a mountain top clearing in Laos and delivered supplies to a group of what looked like bandits. Was on the ground about 5 minutes then back to 'Nam. Don't ever remember hearing "names" for these little strips or clearings.

Joe

[–] randy_gibson 18 years ago

When I was an air traffic controller, a lot of my co-workers were Vietnam era pilots or assorted other military. One had been a Marine Embassy Guard and had taken a job with Air America because in the Marines (like most branches of military), only officers get to fly. He flew Pilatus Porters for a couple of years mostly right at the end of the war. The landing strips were generally known by a code word and by coordinates. He said one of them was cut at such a steep grade that you had to land uphill and take off downhill regardless of the wind conditions. He also said it wasn't all that unusual to have a band of Laotian guerillas who'd been supplied with rice one day wind up shooting at him when he tried to land later in the week. He claimed he could recognize some of the faces and uniforms that had been offloading bags of rice now shooting ancient M1 rifles at him. Most of the aircraft were stationed at Udorn AFB in Thailand which was also a USAF base. Around 1970-72, it was the busiest airport in the world most days.

[–] chris_thomson 18 years ago

Jo and Randy, Amazing stories, in the early 70's I was still filling my nappies so don't have any 'real' experience other than the present, having a small plane near Utapao AFB, rebuilding it with leftover and junked parts from that era, and knowing that a lot of the old Thai pilots, and 'farang' around are these incredible hero's from that distant time. Christopher Robbin's books are well worth the read and the movie, apart from the bad press it got, I do believe shows how it would have looked as far as asthetics. My Thai pilot mates recognise all the locations in the film, usually with a bit of a laugh!

[–] captkirk_4 14 years ago

There are remote airstrips in Alaska and Idaho that are just as bizarre as the ones we see in the movie. PBS showed a curved grass strip along a mountainside in Idaho that is just as perilous as the one in the movie. The planes that go in and out have very rugged wheels for the terrain in these places.

[–] kenj711-1 12 years ago

Here's a link about the pilot that did a lot of the flying for the movie, including the mountainside landing. That was done in a plane that he and several others built from junked aircraft that hadn't flown in 10 years.

http://www.airportjournals.com/Display.cfm?varID=0611038

[–] jporter-6 12 years ago

We could tell you, but then we'd have to kill you.