Air America Log information
for AIR AMERICA LAOS
CIC
USAID

For date 680229


AIR AMERICA LAOS was a Air America unit
Primary service involved, Air America
Laos
Location, Vientiane
Description: What follows is an edited version of an article printed in Air America Log, the company newspaper dated February, 1968. The article is titled Vientiane by Frank L. Dunn, BM/VTE. Air America's Laos Base is located at Wattay Airport, Vientiane, Laos, the country's Administrative Capitol; Luang Prabang, the Royal Capitol, is 145 miles to the north. AAM operates in Laos to meet contractual commitments with such organizations as the International Control Commission (C.I.C.) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). To meet these commitments, AAM performs these services in Southeast Asia: 1. Maintains C.I.C. helicopters based at WSattay Airport and provides ground services to the organization's four-enginer Boeing Stratoliners transiting Vientiane. AAM also supplies weather information for C.I.C. flights in to and out of Wattay. 2. Provides airlift throughout Laos under contract with USAID. Note: the Air Transport Operations Group (ATOG) is a cargo and traffic handling function which AAM performs under contract with USAID. Of AAM's Laos airlift operations, 85% are cargo flights, 15% personnel flights. Cargo delivered in Laos is mostly rice and related commodities which are both free air-dropped without parachute or landed on-site. AAM also parachutes commodities which would not withstand the impact of a free fall - such as drums of kerosene. Air-dropping accounts for over 80% of the deliveries; the rest is landed. AAM air-delivers over 8-million pounds of commodities a month. In addition to its Main Base at Vientiane, AAM operates stations at these far-flung Laotian localities - going from north to south: Ban Houie Sai, Luang Prabang, Sam Thong, Savannahket and Pakse. AAM operates fights on a regular schedule between Vientiane, Luang Prabang, Savannahket, Pakse and Attopue, Laos, and a regular twice-a-week commissary flight to Bangkok, Thailand. AAM planes also fly throughout Laos non-sked. They operate off of all kinds of strips - ranging from Wattay's 6,000 foot concrete runway to 600 foot dirt strips perched on mountain ridges, carved out of hillsides or snuggled in remote valleys. A total of 43 planes are based at VTE: Helios, Porters, Volpars, Ten-twos, Caribous, C-47s, C-46s and C-123s. VTE employs over 1,100 personnel who, by passport check, cover the astonishing range of 13 nationalities. The large majority, however, are Lao. Air America's aircraft operate seven days a week the year-round. And this is done in the face of such harassments as a 21-day flood (which, in 1966, covered Wattay with 5 feet of water), actions by unfriendly forces, tornadoes and the like.

The source for this information was Copied from original newspaper located at UTD library by Mike Law 12/97


Additional information is available on CD-ROM.

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Date posted on this site: 05/13/2023