So what the hell is a gooney bird. It’s a freakin albatross. A clumsy looking bird on the ground, but elegant in flight. A great place to see em is Midway Island, an atoll just a couple hours flying time west of Hawaii. Many years ago, I spent several amusing minutes watching them clumsily land and navigate around Midway. They would land and frequently do a sort of somersault after landing.
The gooney bird or “goon” for short, was also the nickname we Air Force dudes gave to the C-47 aircraft, our version of the Douglas DC-3, a commercial workhorse of the 40’s. (God, I’m old)
The gooney bird and I had an eerie but close relationship during the early part of my Air Force career. (and even before).
Circa 1958, I was a sophomore AFROTC cadet at Queens College in NYC. About ten of us had a training/orientation flight in mid winter from Mitchel Field on Long Island to Bartow AFB in Winterhaven, Florida. Our instructors put us all on a C-47. It looked old then. It had been around for at least 15 years and was a workhorse for us during the Big War. We flew at an 150 mph for about 4-5 hours in that dirty old two-prop-engine jalopy.
All of us young lads with heads fulla mush thought, “We’re goin to Florida. It’s bathing suit time”. WRONG- It was about 50 degrees and cloudy. Still beats 20 degrees and cloudy.
Time passes.
It’s now 1961, and I’m a brand new 2nd lieutenant on my way to James Connally AFB for 10 months of navigator training. JFK to Dallas on American Airlines 707. Ooh, a jet. Yay. Now it’s time to go about 100 miles south to Waco and James Connally.
Hello DC-3, AKA C-47, AKA gooney bird. So a gooney bird brought me to my first Air Force active duty assignment.
Time passes again.
It’s now 1969 and I am s senior navigator and an Air Force captain with over 4000 flying hours in C-130 and C-141 aircraft, a true airlfter with global airlift experience (Central America, South America, Europe, Africa, South Atlantic Ocean, and even Asia).
Naturally, I was assigned to Tan Son Nhut AB, to navigate (guess what?) the venerable C-47. The goon and I spent over 1000 hours, 143 recon missions and one year together in lovely Vietnam. Who’d a thunk I would spend that much combat time in the oldest aircraft in the Air Force inventory. Our Squadron nickname was “Antique Airlines”.
Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert had “The Egg and I”. I had “The Gooney Bird and I”. Hollywood anyone? Enuf.
