Ftrooppilot

Quiet day today and I found an interesting video. This mission was flown on September 7, 1967 which means I was flying one of the airplanes. Ranch Hand owned 21 airplanes when I was there and we took 2100 hits that year (Oct 66 - Oct 67) with twelve crew members KIA. There was one point in time (before I arrived) that every pilot in the squadron had at least one Purple Heart.

Stock Footage - U.S. UC-123B aircraft, in Operation Tired Bill, spray agent orange defoliant in Vietnam

Adlerdriver

Do you have any health issues related to flying these missions? Have the aircrews been affected long term as a rule or was is mostly folks on the ground in the areas being sprayed?

Snarge

Monsanto is doing just fine too....

Ftrooppilot

Me - No medical problems other then my son is an airline pilot.

Aircrews - after 20 years of a five day medical exam every five years - as healthy if not better then the comparison group. Air Force Health Study (Ranch Hand) Research Assets - Announcement of availability for analysis - Institute of Medicine

Over the past 18 years, Ranch Hand veterans have participated in a $120
million epidemiological study—the Air Force Health Study, commonly called the
Ranch Hand Study. The participants received physical exams in 1982, 1985,
1987, 1992, and 1997. The final physical exams are scheduled for 2002. Although
Ranch Hand personnel naturally had the greatest degree and frequency of
contact with the herbicides, physical examinations at the Kelsey–Seybold clinic
in Houston and the Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation in La Jolla, Calif.,
reveal that the mortality rate of the group is the same as a matched comparison
group (Air Force veterans who flew in C-130s in Southeast Asia during the Ranch
Hand time frame) and significantly lower than the rate for the male population of
the United States. The number of birth defects among children of Ranch Hand
veterans is the same as the children of the comparison group.

Folks on the ground. - 368 lbs. of dioxin was contained in the 20 million gallons sprayed in ten years. 85% was absorbed by trees. The 15% that may have made it to the ground equates to 1/2 eyedropper a day over an area the size of New Hampshire. The VA has granted "presumptive association" with certain medical conditions. They have never said "caused by."

Ftrooppilot

RESULTS:

Historical information demonstrates that herbicide spray missions were carefully planned and that spraying only occurred when friendly forces were not located in the target area. RANCH HAND spray missions were either not approved or cancelled if approved when there were friendly forces in the area designated for spraying. Stringent criteria had to be met before spray missions could be approved. The operational information shows that spray missions for both defoliation and crop destruction were conducted in an extremely hostile environment. Heavy 'fighter suppression' with antipersonnel ordnance was used to minimize the impact of hostile ground fire on RANCH HAND aircraft. Procedures were in place that prohibited movement of troops into sprayed areas immediately after a mission due to the possible presence of unexploded ordnance delivered by fighter aircraft supporting RANCH HAND missions. The optimal nature of the spray equipment and application procedures minimized the possibility of significant spray drift. Conclusions. Few friendly troops were sprayed by fixed wing aircraft during Operation RANCH HAND, which delivered 95% of all defoliants used in Vietnam.
Assessing possible exposures of g... [Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2004] - PubMed - NCBI

N9373M

the URL contains F-4C???

X.criticalpast.com/video/65675021210_Operation-Tired-Bill_VC-123B_F-4C-aircraft_spread-defoliant

Ftrooppilot

THe only reason I can think of "Why ?" is that we flew with fighter cover - but mostly F100s from Bien Hoa. Sometimes F4s from Da Nang would do the same when we were defoliating the trail coming out of North Vietnam and in Laos. They would fly pass us at 100 feet count ten seconds and drop CBU2 linear delivery cluster bombs. It build a "keep you head down" path for us to fly through. Her is an F-4 pass.

N9373M

Way cool. Thanks.

Fighter cover was my initial thought as well, but did not see any in the vid.

rickair7777

You have a lot of history Ftroop...

Ftrooppilot

When I think about some of those experiences (I volunteered), it scares the crap out of me. But as line in Les Miserables goes, " I was young and unafraid . . ."