JohnB wrote:
I recall a book I read 30+ years ago, ("Air America"..IIRC), the author mentioned "spook" C-130s with all ID marks removed...up to and including all serial numbers on the various parts (and perhaps parts numbers themselves).
At the time I thought it was a bit silly because there were no civil Herks that early so the aircraft would have to have been US or the few allies that then flew them. Not a lot of room for deniability...unlike a an old C-47 or Twin Beech that could have been sold to anyone.
Air America put General Aircraft in Minniesnowplace out of business by their use of HELIO COURIERS. General had a nice little business going producing U-10's and civilian COURIERS, the CIA/AA got a few, liked them, discovered they were the airborne equal to a gray Chevy pickup truck in that they were pretty much off everyones perceptions and ordered more all sans any sort of p/n-s/n. Soon requests started coming in for prints to 'repair/replace' damaged wing ribs or wing skins from a 'government source' then more print requests and a serious drop off to zero orders for their airplanes followed by bankruptcy, seems 'those folks' had enough factory drawings to manufacture their own complete airframes with no pesky p/n-s/n issues. At about the same time the head of the CIA asked 'so, how many airplanes DO we have or own?' after a through search of records the answer was, 'we've got no idea' as engines, parts new, parts old, and parts 'created' for their fleet were scattered all over the world and no way to track things by non existent s/n's. Rumors persist of at least one all bare metal C-130 with no p/n-s/n's on anything kept in a special hanger inside a fenced and guarded compound on Ubon that only came out occasionally at night.
I don't know if they still do or not, but EVERGREEN AIR in Oregon used to have a 'ready' airplane (usually a 727QC with palletized seats) that had cheat stripes but no logos and no registration number on it, if it was 'needed' a mechanic strolled out to it on the ramp with a stencil, a ladder, and a rattlecan of black paint and suddenly that 727 was 9V-GMR or some other bogus # including the same as one doing the U.S. Mail overnight domestic contracts so they could say 'no, N 1234EV was in Cleveland at that time two nights ago' because EVERGREEN was some sort of tied in with 'curious' projects for a while including being the ONLY allowed bidder for a closed Air Force Base in Marana AZ.
Check utdallas.edu-library for a very interesting deep dive into Air Americas fleet
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