USAF Thunderbirds support aircraft

With all of its markings covered this C123 was being loaded. The people around were not pleased to see us. I did later find that it was involved in gun running

European-based C-123B Troop Carrier displayed at the 1957 Armed Forces Day at USAF/RAF Burtonwood, Lancashire.

Still has AMARC inventory code CP094 on the nose.

Built for USAF as C-123B 54-674 and upgraded to C-123K with underwing auxiliary jets and fuel tanks.

This Provider wears the unusual radar nose and dark camouflage applied when it was operated by the 16th Special Operations Squadron in South Vietnam on Operation Black Spot when based at Udon. Later to the Thai AF.

Not the prettiest aeroplane in history, the C-123 derived from an assault glider design.

This former 144th TAS Provider was preserved just outside Kulis ANGB, surrounded by trees and with the beautiful Chugach Mountains in the background. The aircraft was dismantled and removed in early 2011, and trucked to nearby Elmendorf AFB, where it was re-assembled for continued display. It was still there by early 2021. In the 1970s this Provider flew for the Alaska Department of the Interior, under civilian registration N4393E.

"Large Marge", ex USAF 54-709 and bought from Ray Petkow's Classics in Aviation in December 2003, is a famous aircraft. It featured as the "Jailbird" in the 1997 movie Con Air, in which it did all the flying scenes. It even had two stand-ins, for the destructive scenes. They were N94DT c/n 20155 and ex USAF 56-4361 c/n 20245. All three looked identical, and all wore registration N709RR. Very confusing, but the one in this photo is the only real N709RR. Unfortunately this rare aircraft crashed in Denali National Park on 2 August 2010. Three people lost their lives in the crash.

Good to see this classic transport still active at this time, with just a year left in service with AFRes/302TAW. Retired to MASDC, Davis Monthan 22.7.81 and now displayed at 82nd Airborne Division Memorial, Fort Bragg, NC

This Provider was taken on charge in 1957 as a C-123B and served in Vietnam from 1961 to 1972, first as a UC-123B and later as a UC-123K when the auxiliary J85 jets were added, flying low-level defoliant and insecticide spray missions and cargo deliveries into strips as short as 2,000ft. Stored at Davis-Monthan from 1976 but reactivated for the Peruvian police on drug interdiction work under US Department of State registration N97033 from 1987 (nicknamed "El Burro"), prior to preservation at Dover in 1990. Serial presentation "AF40-658" is of course nonsense and should have read "AF54-658".

This AFRes/302TAW Provider, heading a line of six, was placed into store at DM on 29.6.80 and scrapped in 2013

This Provider, ex USAF 56-4390, was on outdoor display at the Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum at Anchorage International Airport for many years. In 2004 it was bought by All West Freight, dismantled, and trucked up north to their private All West Airport. It was obviously still dismantled when this photo was taken, but everything was there (the wings are stored to the right). By late 2017 nothing had changed - the aircraft was still there, in the exact same dismantled condition.