This 1960s color film produced by the United States Air Force offers a look at aircraft maintenance procedures and the often overlooked men who performed them during the Vietnam War era, using documentary footage and informal, macho narration to highlight the unique appeal and responsibility of what was once disparagingly known as the “grease monkey” profession, in a plea for respectability (15:05).
The seal of the United States of America Department of the Air Force. Opening titles: “The United States Air Force presents Men of Maintenance Southeast Asia” (0:08). A Republic F-105 Thunderchief lands with a parachute following “a bombing run over North Vietnam,” according to narration. A flight crew climbs a ladder and meets with a crew chief (0:30). A maintenance debriefing with pilots and their commanding officers, “malfunction junction” (1:25). A maintenance crew goes to work, managing cables, control panels, and switchboards of the aircraft fuselage (2:02). An interview with a pilot, DeMarzo of the Air Force (2:26). A shirtless mechanic hard at work stops for an interview, his hands covered in grease (3:00). A de Havilland Canada DHC-4 Caribou twin-engine cargo aircraft taking off, and on a tarmac (3:42). Crews work in a hangar on disassembled engines. Inside a maintenance control center. A mobile maintenance unit, a “troubleshooter on wheels” (4:00). An engine oil analyzer. A propeller engine gets an overhaul (4:45). A Cessna O-1 Bird Dog observation craft. An interview on the subject of staffing air controllers and crew chiefs in South Vietnam (5:33). Jungle brush on the horizon while the interviewee tells of “Charlie” taking potshots at the airstrip (6:20). Three men share cans of coke with a young Vietnamese boy, a “sharp kid.” They explain that he has been helping with work, doing odd jobs. In exchange, they are paying his school tuition (6:38). A Cessna O-1 Bird Dog (7:11). Electricians make repairs. Carpentry work. An officer directs their construction work, talking over hammers. An excavator dumps sand. Three kinds of weather: “Very hot, very wet, or both” (7:15). An interview, almost drowned out by the hum of engines. “Noise, always noise.” A man explains his preference for night shifts due to the cooler weather and better rest. Men sleep in a barracks (8:08). “Then there’s one more environmental problem, named Charlie.” Vietnamese in conical hats. A man explains that the barracks are new because the old ones were burned down in an attack (9:03). A man holds letters from home. A control room. A day of R&R. Men enjoy a cookout with a dog (10:00). Sergeant Richardson and a Catholic nun organize a group of local children in an orphanage. Kids play on a swing set (10:38). A maintenance man listens to a story about a “two MiG kills,” (Soviet aircraft) (11:50). A white pilot fills the screen as he compliments a black maintenance man, who is cropped out (12:35). A man in an office talks about how maintenance workers’ responsibilities have changed over the years (13:12). Men sing a folk song over end credits: “The End, produced by Aerospace Audiovisual Service, Military Airlift Command, SFP 1571: (14:28).
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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
