Did phu bai have a landing strip?

Answer 1

Phu Bai had become a very large military installation by 1969. I was put there and I left from there 431 days later on a C-130. I was assigned to the 101st at Phu Bai, and I recall the morning I heard the sound of distant jet engines ramping up. I was surprised to see a Boeing 727 taking flight over the tree line about 2 1/2 miles away (but still within the confines of the Phu Bai installation. The plane was operated by So VN for indigenous folks that were well-off.

Prior to that morning the largest plane I had known to land/depart from Phu Bai was the C-130. Those occasional 727s that came and went had to come in and leave at a pretty high angle- certainly nothing like what a US passenger would tolerate- the kind of take-off or landing the C-130 does routinely.

Of course, Phu Bai was loaded with every variety of helicopter, certainly in the hundreds in number- but, then again, we were the 101st Airborne, and, as I recall, two or three of our infantry divisions were HQed there. At night on the bunker'perimeter line, because of the terrain and a large swamp between our segregated compound and the "airport" we could see the lighted larger buildings- hangers- where mechanic operations would take place. Phu Bai was a big place. By 1970, Charlie and the NVA didn't mess with Phu Bai beyond occasional harassment mortars- it wasn't prudent for lots of reasons. And Laos/Cambodia channels were only a few miles away (VN is very narrow in the location of the DMZ where Phu Bai was. Remember: major military confrontations had taken place In/around Hue in the TET of 1968 (18 months earlier and just a few miles away) with lots of lives lost by everybody. The VC had largely moved away form our AO, but for the harassment role. Thus, the RSVN felt okay to fly 727s in and out- not sure how "regular" was their schedule.