I was a navigator on Air Force C-130Es in Southeast Asia in 1971 and 1972.  We had a weekly cargo and PAX mission to fly from Bankok to Diego Garcia Island in the Chagos Archipelago while Navy CBs were building the base there.  This probably wouldn't be very exciting in Flight Sim, but for a navigator it was *ssholes and elbows for 14 hours, calculating and taking celestial shots  every 20 minutes (no GPS or INS in those days) and arriving in the area of Diego Garcia (where there were no nav aids other than the base radio station) without enough fuel to get to any alternate airfield.  On top of that, the runway was crushed coral and only about 2000 feet long, if memory serves.  The route was west from BKK to Car Nicobar Island  and then southwest to Diego Garcia.
I think I remember correctly that in November 1971 one of my Wing's C-130s hauled Bob Hope and his Christmas troop to Diego where they did a show.