Ov10 aussie fac

“Roger that, One Six. We're en route and I'm scrambling the ARPs. Hang in there!” Then my Guard freq crackled again, only this time in a deep Australian accent. “Hello there, Darkhorse One Six, this is Sidewinder One Five, your friendly neighborhood FAC. I hear you've got trouble, Matie. I'm just coming off Dau Tieng with a full load of Willie Pete and guns on board. Can I be of any assistance?” “Yep, you sure as hell can, Sidewinder,” I answered the forward air controller in his OV-10. “We've got a helicopter and aircrew down danger close to a VC contact. We may have to do a RESCAP. You got any fast movers you can haul in here to put a cap on this thing?” “Well, I don't know, mate. I'm just getting off and haven't checked in with my control yet. Stand by while I query. Meantime, I'm en route.” Then I heard Fishman go up on UHF to troop ops. “Darkhorse Three, this is Three Four … in the vicinity of Quan Loi with a message from One Six. Darkhorse Three One has been shot down in the area of grid X-Ray Tango 660290. Crew is down near heavy contact between VC and 25th Division troops. Need to extract immediately before Cobra crew is overrun. Scramble the ARPs. Scramble gun teams 1 and 2. I'm en route and moving out ahead of my scout to make contact.” While I waited, I mentally reviewed the situation. Sidewinder was on the way from Dau Tieng and was working on RESCAP. Three Four was on his way from Quan Loi, and scramble teams would soon be underway from Phu Loi. If only any one or all could make it to the crash scene before Charlie got on top of Sinor and Kauffman. This would be close! The Australian came back up on the Guard emergency frequency and I heard him call in the blind: “This is Sidewinder One Five off of Dau Tieng at one zero past the hour. A U.S. helicopter and crew are down. Who can help me on a RESCAP operation?” I overheard a series of transmissions back to Sidewinder offering help. A flight of four VNAF (Vietnamese Air Force) A-37 Dragon-flies in the area northwest of Saigon was diverting, a flight of four A-7 U.S. Navy aircraft operating somewhere to the northeast was en route, a flight of F-4 U.S. Air Force fighter-bombers operating up on the Cambodian border near the Fishhook was called in, and a flight of Spads, or Vietnamese Air Force A-Is, was diverted from down south around VC Island. Sidewinder logged in the transmissions from the reporting flights and assigned them to various altitudes over the contact area. Knowing the basic characteristics and capabilities of each type of aircraft, Sidewinder stacked the flights according to which planes could stay longer and which had to do their thing fast and get out of the pattern. As cool as a cucumber, the Australian sequenced and layered all the air support over the contact point so that he could use each type of aircraft to its fullest capability. I had to hand it to him … he bloody well knew his business. As all this was going on, I maintained a tight circle pattern over Sinor and Kauffman. For their own peace of mind, I wanted them to know that I was overhead and keeping an eye peeled for any sign that the bad guys were getting closer to their downed Cobra.