Roden 440 Pilatus PC-6C/H-2 Turbo-Porter 1:48

An airline was founded in the U.S.A. in 1946, under the name "Air America". At first sight, it was an entirely ordinary event, as private air transport had been practiced for a long time in this country, and so the appearance of yet another airline was unexceptional.

However, this new company actually belonged to the Central Intelligence Agency, with the primary purpose of reconnaissance activity beyond its own borders, which is why Air America's activities in that period were always concerned with out of the ordinary air transportation.

The headquarters of the airline were in Washington, D.C., but this was an elaborate and fictitious front, as in a democratic society like this the politicians strictly supervised the activities of the C.I.A. and other such agencies. The primary purpose of Air America on its foundation, and in future, was to support the covert operations of the C.I.A. in the planet's "hot spots".

One of the hottest spots at that time appeared to be South-East Asia. Only recently the war in Korea had split the country into two parts, and following on from that the tensest situation was in Vietnam, where the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union vied to turn the conflict to their advantage, and ignored no potential way of achieving their purpose.

At the end of the 1950's the Air America fleet consisted of forty, fifty aircraft or more and was very mixed: pilots flew a variety of types, beginning with small Beechcrafts and then twin engine C-123 Provider transports. They mainly operated out of bases in Thailand, and also in Taiwan and Japan. The main flight destinations were not only Vietnam; there were also permanent routes to Laos, Cambodia, Burma, and China.

The missions of Air America flights were extremely varied. Sometimes they took military specialists to dangerous flashpoints, in other cases airplanes delivered cargoes to supply the needs of pro-American factions. Quite often these loads were simply ordinary weapons. The "passengers" of the airline were specialists in blasting work, military doctors, diplomats, and sometimes even V.I.P's, for example future President of the U.S.A. Richard Nixon. Later the airplanes of Air America were sometimes engaged in "dirty work" such as the spraying of Agent Orange defoliant over the jungle.