ikar Posted July 27, 2020 Share Posted July 27, 2020 Here's some shots of a C-46 we had make a emergency landing at our base. It needed a new engine and sat for some time until a replacement finally showed up and they left. They posted a guard from our Air Base Defense sectionwith orders to shoot anyone trying toi access the aircraft vwithout permission of the crew. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Drifterdon Posted July 30, 2020 Share Posted July 30, 2020 Air America? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
martin_sam_2000 Posted July 30, 2020 Share Posted July 30, 2020 3 minutes ago, Drifterdon said: Air America? Aircraft was registered in Laos. Did Air America have non US registered aircraft. I would assume it was a much more shadowy arm of the CIA (or some other equally shadowy group) that flew this one. sean Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ikar Posted August 5, 2020 Author Share Posted August 5, 2020 Never found out for sure who they were. Somebody got posted each shift, each one informed that anybody approaching the aircraft with out a member of the crew was to be shot. We were not to go around asking questions. One day I took my jeep to that end of the base and we found out it had left during the night. We never saw it again. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Drifterdon Posted August 5, 2020 Share Posted August 5, 2020 Did a quick search of the interweb and this page shows that it belonged to CASI (Continental Air Services, Inc.) flown out of Laos. Not sure what their source is. http://www.wings-aviation.ch/76-AirAmerica/2-Aircraft/Curtiss-Commando/Transporter.htm Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ikar Posted August 6, 2020 Author Share Posted August 6, 2020 All us skycops assumed it was the CIA and we left it alone and kept quiet and as far away as possible. The CIA had a reputation back then that made most people avoid them if possible. Was it deserved? we didn't know of care to ask. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Orion Field Posted October 14, 2021 Share Posted October 14, 2021 (edited) The aircraft is not Air America, but C-46R XW-PHN was registered to Continental Air Services, which did basically a lot of the same stuff Air America did in the region, just under the banner of Continental Airlines. Still had lots of connections to the CIA. They had quite the interesting array of aircraft as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Air_Services,_Inc Edited October 14, 2021 by Orion Field Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Gwen Phoenix Posted July 18, 2022 Share Posted July 18, 2022 Hi Ikar, Bolivia made extensive use of these beautiful birds. Dunno whether some of them are in airworthy condition these days. Some good shots by Michael Prophet and Christian Volpati on this page. Cheers, Gwen Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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