Our busiest air terminal is in Vietnam DPR/TV/1158

Accession Number F04371
Collection type Film
Measurement 5 min 17 sec
Object type Actuality footage, Television news footage
Physical description 16mm/b&w/sound
Place made Vietnam: Phuoc Tuy Province, Nui Dat, Luscombe Airfield
Date made 12 July 1969-6 August 1969
Access Open
Conflict Vietnam, 1962-1975
Copyright Item copyright: © Australian War Memorial
Creative Commons License This item is licensed under CC BY-NC
Description

Australia's efforts in the Vietnam War involve more aircraft movements every day than any of the busy terminals inside Australia. There are eight thousand aircraft movements into and out of the Australian Task Force base at Nui Dat every month - two thousand more than the busiest of Australia's international airports. (The air terminal at Nui Dat is completely manned and operated by members of the Australian Army Aviation Corps from 161st Independent Reconnaissance Flight.) The skies over Phuoc Tuy Province, the Australian Force's special area of responsibility, buzz with military aircraft, of all descriptions. A recently constructed 70 foot tower is now the nerve centre for air traffic in and around Nui Dat. These can include Hercules and Caribou transport aircraft of the RAAF or Cessna planes of the Army's Aviation Corps. From inside the tower, the air traffic controller also has radio control over the numerous helicopter landing zones throughout the sprawling Task Force area. The main airstrip was named "Luscombe Field" in memory of the first Australian Army pilot to lose his life in action. There's an average of 40 fixed wing flights in and out each day. The helipad at one end of Luscombe Field, the home of the Army's 161st Independent Reconnaissance Flights, has an average of 73 flights a day. These consist mainly of Sioux helicopters which act as the eyes for the infantry. Larger helicopters of the Iroquois and Chinook class normally operate from a place on the other side of Nui Dat hill known as Kangaroo Pad. There's an average of 255 flights in and out of here every day. The Task Force base has an average of three hundred and sixty flights every day of all kinds of aircraft currently in operation. The infantryman doesn't march into an area of operations now - he's choppered in, a phrase coined for the transportation of troops by helicopters.[Dope sheet storyline]. Identified personnel: Captain Frank Markcrow of Ipswich, Qld; Corporal Stan Pankowski of Warner's Bay, NSW; Controller, WO2 Ron "Snow" Baxter of Ipswich, Qld.