Story of THC-025
I can't tell you what was the worst of that short flight:
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For Your Eyes Only:
Teiakoia'tahkhwa
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After the Orlyonok affair and the mistakes I've made over the net I had to leave Europe for a while. Thanks to dESPair headquarters contacts I manage to find an interesting job in South America. The place was perfect for someone like me. Just for the time needed for some people to forget me.
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In Argentina I met for the first time the Grumman Mohawk. After the Falklands war Argentina made the acquisition of 34 OV-1D Mohawk from the US Army surplus. So I learned to fly the Mohawk. And to use all the avionics including the side-looking airborne radar and IR / photographic cameras. A lot of tech data to learn. On top of those manuals the OV1-D has good STOL capabilities. And I'm not good at all with short landings. Really hard for me and even today I'm not really good at it despite my two wonderful instructors: an American sergeant-pilot and an Israeli captain specialised in all recognition system from binoculars to geostationary satellite management. I tried to spend 50% of my time with each of them but I had so much to learn in observation system and she was so... well I guess without seeing her you could not understand.
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Jimmy, my Flight Instructor
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Snounit, my Mission Specialist
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More e stuff to learn.
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Why not Argentinean instructors? Well the mission was planned by an American official organisation in association with some South American government. But the Americans could not be directly involved. Nor any South American country. And that's why dESPair HQ was contacted. Not officially off course. Since the US Army flow that plane from 1959 until 1996 and used it for geologic and hydrologic studies they know that plane really well. I've learned from Snounit that Tsahal bought some Mohawks in 1975 and as usual really improved the basic capabilities before replacing them by Grumman E2-C Hawkeye. Well after 2 months of intense training our real mission was finally revealed to us: discovering drug plantation and helping to dismantle drug traffic from South to North America. I suspected the CIA but I guessed it was more the FDA. |
Part of the ground team at work
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Day and night Snounit and I covered miles of fields and exposed miles of films mainly over Chile. A team was busy keeping the plane in order to fly since the Argentinean offered all Mohawks as repair parts -not without financial compensation from our commanditer I guess. Another team was devoted to the avionics and we went a few times to Israel to get newer stuff from their old OV1Ds.
During that time I manage to jump to Switzerland to report to despair HQ and during my free time, to glide with all dESPairados over the Swiss Alps.
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Interception of narco trafiquant
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One of our base camp
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Israelian cousin
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1) the take-off;
2) the smell in the cabin despite the air conditioning and my oxygen mask;
3) the low altitude flight at night and the ejection over the jungle or
4) the six day trip back to civilisation.
After a short stay in hospital I went back the OPS base. 4 Mossad agents interrogated my for 3 days. I told them the story again and again: we took off and I flew the usual tests for the Mohawk. Snounit was testing observation systems. We had a weak engine and suddenly a major hydraulic failure. I order ejection and ejected. Snounit didn't. A second after I escaped the plane crashed down and exploded.
Then the real trip into the jungle. They ordered me to find the crash site and take pictures. I took me 2 days to locate the plane. Two Mossad agents parachute over the site for investigation. A crane was even brought there by helicopter. Fortunately the plane crashed head first and they founded evidence that my story sounds like the truth. The mission was almost over and without Snounit there was no point to continue. So the team was dismantled. I flew the team, 3 Mohawks and a cargo plane back to the USA. The official plan was to rejoin the dESPair hub in Canada. But I had to pick up Snounit. With her stealth-like radar image I managed to fly the OV1D down to Mexico and back to USA with Snounit with no one noticing.
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Meeting Sir Troll over Canada
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A 3rd team including both of us was analysing all data's collected and planning missions to come. So we helped to dismantle 7 cartel branches. We have moved OPS base four times to explore new areas and to prevent localisation by mafia indicators. Thanks to the Israeli detection equipment and Snounit skills we greatly improved the "Whispering Death" pacific abilities, the name the Mohawk gained in Nam. Do not expect any surprising end to this story: what dESPair wins from this was some money and the Mohawk with all added stuffs by the Israeli and spare parts for the Americans including snow/mud ski. A good bargain since it's a really strong, powerful, all weathers, STOL airplane and low cost in both dollars and time. The only surprising bit is Snounit, my observer. In the beginning I suspected her being a Mossad agent but she was an Army INT officer. She had serious problems because of an officer who tried to rape her. She killed him. She was court martialed and convicted of murder. One Mossad highly ranked officer -knowing the killed officer secret file- preferred to use her for that mission instead of letting her in jail knowing she was likely telling the truth. She kept good contact with Israel military but hated the government attitude knowing she was innocent. After explaining her situation to dESPair HQ I was allowed to offer her to continue her job with dESPair team. So one night after the end of a mission we had to perform a test flight with an old Mohawk. It was a great opportunity for us. For once I managed to use correctly the short landing abilities, the landing gear stressed for high sink rate and the low pressure tires to land on an unprepared surface. Here comes the awful part: we took out a body from a grave in a cemetery, placed it in Snounit seat after the sabotage of her ejection seat.
at EDDF
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After the difficult journey on her own from Argentina to Mexico all the flight north to Canada was a nightmare for her since she had to hide all the time but the flying hours. Arrived at Calgary Sir Troll found us a nice house to take a needed rest. Later the aircraft was transferred from dESPair Canadian Hub to Europe and has been reassembled at dESPair HQ. in Frankfurt.
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Since the Mohawk is a native North American tribe of the Iroquoian language family I named the plane "teiakoia'tahkhwa", hawk in their language. Teiakoia will be her nickname.
The OV1D will be used commercially for quick and cheap air photographs and for geologic, geographic, agricultural, ecologic and hydrologic studies. In secret she also used for dESPair SOAS. Snounit and the dESPair crew are working very well together the keep operational.
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My first solo
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| To complete your knowledge of the Mohawk, you can read
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Captain Wolfie
