The coded language seems part of the mystique even now, after archives have been opened and books written about one of the largest covert operations ever.

Numbers of aircraft, codes for hidden airstrips and the noms de guerre of the helicopter pilots, known as rotor-heads, jostled for attention as they shared memories and legends of their high times in the wars.

But time has wrought its work on these one-time macho men: 'Now what was the name of that place. I can see the topography clear as anything, just can't think of the name . . .'

'We're just a bunch of old guys getting together to talk about the good times,' admits one man, who has flown for the 'free world' in Laos, Vietnam, the Congo, Angola and Iran, and still carries a selection of mysterious name cards.

But not every geriatrics' reunion features Bloody Marys from breakfast on through three days of 'attitude adjustment sessions' (that's happy hour] until a rowdy closing after midnight each night.

'Actually, I was there for the money,' one pilot says, as he greets Wolverine Sam, the Thai who ran a legendary bar of the same name.

At first, such men are cagey about discussing their experiences with a journalist.

They remember getting burned, they say, by reporters who sought to expose their actions in a CIA-led war deemed illegal by the US government and the target of mass anti-war protests back home.

And they are outraged by the movie Air America, starring Mel Gibson, which purported to expose Air America as an airline formed to ferry opium out for profit from the Hmong tribespeople used by the CIA as front-line troops against communism.

'The only thing that's right in that movie is that we had great parties,' says a helicopter pilot, now pushing 70 and pacing himself on heart medication and Singha beer.

But the drug trafficking undoubtedly occurred.

'We couldn't avoid carrying it sometimes,' admits one veteran. 'Some old Hmong guy would get on with a sack and we weren't going to ask him what was in it.'

Far more pertinent to these flying aces is the work they did moving people out of range of enemy fire, and especially their ferrying of hundreds of South Vietnamese out of Saigon as it fell on April 29, 1975.

That is what makes one photograph so sacred - the one taken by Hong Kong-based Hubert Van Es. He immortalised the last helicopter out that day, and the line of Vietnamese climbing into it from the roof of a CIA apartment building.

Only last year was it confirmed which Air America pilot was the rotor-head in that famous picture, but many of his colleagues want the identity kept secret so that the picture may continue to be an 'unknown soldier' kind of tribute to all Air America's men.

The reunion gave pilot Bob Caron a chance to reunite with his Thai mechanic, and with the colleague who rescued him when he was shot down in 1971.

Other exploits are better known - such as that of Air America Association president Jack Knotts who flew the Laotian General Vang Pao and CIA case officer Jerry 'Hog' Daniels out of Long Tieng, Laos, on May 15, 1975.

Now wheelchair-bound but smoking large cigars, Mr Knotts has lost little of his verve. Asked by a friend to rate the dental work which he had just received in Bangkok, he said: 'Oh yeah, it was great. She had beautiful delicate hands, the price was right, and she had a fine sense of location.'

Political correctness is not on the agenda. They agree it would be best to 'take out' Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein instead of having a vast war. 'Hell I'd do it right now if they asked me,' says one.

And far better to have fought and lost - as did the US in every war which Air America has ever been involved in - than never to have flown at all.

'We were all out here trying to do the best job we could, and we've got a lot of flak for it. But hell, if you discount the bad stuff, did we have a good time!'