[Joeaksa]

Originally posted by cashflyer
Joe,

I was there in the late 80's, and our group called it "Fort Wegotcha".

Interesting stuff, you say?? One of the challenges of daily mission planning was getting around all the "no-fly" areas on the map where seeeecret things were happening. Some of the areas would move from day to day!

I have to admit that when you first mentioned RAVEN, it threw me. It is a name we did not use, and I think from this new post that I have figured out the problem. By chance, were they Marines?? I remember there were several OV-10s on the flight line, but they belonged to a Marine training detachment stationed on the base.

There may have been some crossover, but I understood that the O-1 and OV-1 were ARMY, the O-2 was Air Force, and the OV-10 was Marine. I believe all of these served similar roles.

Cash, The old pics bring back memories. Do not have much time in the O-2 but love the Bird-dog even though I went down in a couple. The Ravens were a program for FAC's in Laos and Cambodia. They were regular Army and Air Force pukes who were "sheep dipped" then they flew behind the lines where "we were not involved" so to speak.

That part of SE Arizona is a "totally pure" area from an electrical emissions standpoint, so a lot of radar and siglint work is done there. All of the F-117 RCH work was done there as was the drone work. After they got finished with it they said that a bumblebee had a larger RCH than the plane or drone! Finally a good result of our tax dollars at work. We enjoyed working with the SR- birds that came and went. Always landed at night and took off before morning to keep the Soviet satellites from picking them up on the ground. Awsome full AB takeoffs that lit up the area for a long time.

Anyway, fly safe and good talking with you...

JoeA