Richard G. McCarthy had the following to say about this system: "The Caribou was a good system.  My memory is a bit hazy about some aspects of the system like how many ops it carried.  I seem to remember two pilots, usually a crew chief, a TA guy who was relegated to working the DECCA Nav system and (I think) three ops.  Two intercept op and one senior op who was also the DF op. It was noisy like all Caribous and due to the weight it was carrying even slower in the climb than most.  I can't remember if it flew the standard four hour mission or stayed up longer.  Everything that was painted OD and flew at low altitudes was hot.  The Boo had the advantage of space so you could at least stand up occasionally.  Many times the tailgate was left up for cooling, but this was stopped when one of the PHYLLIS ANN crews (EC-47) lost some COMUS Pad pages out of a open door.  Other than the Master Op and TA guy crews were flexible.  I flew on it a few
times but didn't like it, not because of the system but because of the similarity to field station work.  The most disconcerting thing about the Boo was due to the long fuselage you really got slammed around when it was working a target.  When we had to turn the Boo over to the Air Force in late 66, all of the mission gear was stripped out ot it and put in a CONEX container.  Someone probably  bought a complete set of mission gear at a government auction years later, and is probably still trying to figure out what it is."

Richard went on to say concerning the battle damage that this aircraft suffered: "At the same time that the 37mm hit the tail (no one in the operators compartment [fuselage] heard or felt the 37mm impact) the belly of the airplane was peppered with .30 cal. at extreme range.  Nothing penetrated the skin but the bottom of the aircraft looked like it was attacked by someone with a ball peen hammer. No one took photos of the belly. The boo was working north of the "Z" when it ran into a flak trap. Everything happened at once.  The DECCA (Navigation gear) operator told me he looked out of the window and the sky was red with tracers going by.  There was a lot of noise from the .30 hitting the belly then it was over.  One of the pilots called back and asked if everyone was OK.  They were aware of the 37mm hit because the rudder was jammed, with only 10 deg travel.  They flew back to Dong Ha using differential power and rudder trim.  At Dong Ha everyone piled out and was laying on the PSP looking at the belly when they noticed a group of Air Force people staring at the tail with their mouths hanging open.  That was the first indication that most of the crew had of the damage to the tail.  After a few nervous cigarettes the pilot gave the crew the option of returning to Phu Bai in the Caribou, or riding in the SAR helicopter that would be escorting them. To a man they climbed back in the Caribou for the return to Phu Bai.  McKay the crew chief (and a true ASA caracter) who had 75 or 80 sport jumps with the Saigon Sport Parachute Club, donned his parachute and spent the trip setting on the tailgate waving to the crew in the SAR helicopter. Bob Taylor (D.F. Op) took the photos that you and I have after they landed at Phu Bai."

The Bendix Eclipse-Pioneer Division fitted the aircraft with an auto-pilot, and the Ryan Aeronautical Company provided coupling between the auto-pilot and the already installed Doppler Navigation system. The system was shipped to Germany in April 1966 and became operational in June.

Don Lewis was good enough to send me a photo of this aircraft and provided the following information:  Our callsign was "Surething" There were West German radar sites in the South, but we had to have positive American radar coverage to go South or immediately turn to a heading of 240 degrees and exit the ADIZ.  Each month, a scheduling conference was held somewhere in Europe (generally pretty nice places, like London or Paris) where dates, times, and tracks of all NATO surveillance aircaft would be agreed to.  If we had an indication that there was some unusual activity across the border, we could request a special mission authorization from the JCS.  When we went North, we got linguistic support (German, Russian, Pole) from Herzo Base (318th ASA Bn).  When we went South, we got Czech support from the same place.  SURE THING had an AN/ALQ-53 and VHF receivers for the voice intercept.  Many of the features on the bird were brand new technology and we even had a Ryan Aircraft civilian technician on site to maintain the Doppler navigation system (which was accurate 75% of the time).