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Norden bombsights in Vietnam...
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JG300-Ascout
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Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2013 6:41 pm
Post subject: Norden bombsights in Vietnam...

What with all these fine Neptune shots cropping up on the POTD, I did some looking around and found out that the OP-2E version (the conversions flown out of Thailand to deliver ADSID and other sensors) flown by VO-67 actually had occasion to use the Norden bombsight for payload delivery. From the squadron's website:

"VO-67 was also the only aircraft squadron, of any service, to use the famous Norden Bombsight during the Vietnam War. The sight was used to implant the "Adsid" sensor, Air Delivered Seismic Detection Sensor, at altitudes of 2000 to 3000 feet."

www.vo-67.org/vo67_opening.html

That must have been interesting to calibrate at that altitude. There are quite a few places in the border regions where the mountains are higher than that, presumably, that was AGL. *

This was all done under the auspices of the not-so-secret "Muscle Shoals" and "Igloo White" operations, a weird undertaking on it's own. I say "not-so-secret" because you had to have been blind not to notice all the strange plants in the border areas (and sometimes deeper in-country than you might expect). Laughing

I wonder what the rating was for a Norden bombsight technician in 1967-68? Wink

*or not. The cordillera is a bad region to fly in, especially in marginal weather:

"Two complete crews were lost from VO-67, totaling 20 brave men from three downed aircraft. Crew 2 of VO-67 was flying a classified mission from their home base at Nakhon Phanom, Thailand, dropping sensors and listening devices along the Ho Chi Min Trail, when they crashed into the Laotian mountainside. The nine crewmembers were initially classified as missing in action, but changed to killed in action only three or four days later."

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