Da Nang in 1993

Gallery Article by Pascal Cholin

At Da Nang, I was able to take some pictures of  Mig-21Bis

As I was looking through my computer files, I found a few pics from a 1 month trip I made to Vietnam in January 1993. At that time, traveling through Vietnam was not as popular as it is now and taking photos of military hardware was not especially welcome by the local authorities :-)

Unfortunately, most of the -military- color slides I made (about 30), were stolen and I only have a few as a souvenir...

Thus, I am only able to show 5 scanned Jpegs. You will notice that the quality is rather poor because :

a) they were taken from a long distance with a 75-300mm zoom lens

b)the scanning was made using a mat-finish paper copy of the original slides.

However, I find the subject of interest, mainly because it shows the contrast between the left-over US buildings & wrecks and the Eastern Block equipment.  I was even born on the exact date of the Tet Offensive, January 30th, 1968.  I found it very emotional to see all the places where so many people fought and suffered.

Click on images below to see larger images

A very impressive line of derelict Mig-21 (various versions) hidden among the US hardened shelter.  Tan Son Nhut Airport : Labeled the busiest aiport in the world in 1968, it was much more quiet 25 years later ! I was astonished to see that most of the original infrastructure was still there, pretty intact. You could notice that the hard revetment is now hosting Russian aircrafts but you could see in a distance the tails of 2 derelict C-130 from the former VNAF, with the rotor head of a CH-47. Hardened shelters showing years of neglect.

Da Nang Airport 

Not the famous USMC "Marble Mountain" shoreline airfield, but the former USAF Air Base. 

On that same airfield, there were also some Kamov KA-29 " Helix " (very seldom at that times) and camouflaged Mil Mi 17s. Aleas, those pics have been stolen, for the personal enjoyment of a fu..... bast... !!!