Hi,
I went there on self-tours on a couple of occasions.
So far as I can tell it is safe to do self-touring although there's a greater deal of "work" required on your part to "negotiate" various aspects of the journey. A no-hassle approach (but probably more expensive) is usually the "pre-packaged" tour, I noticed though US tourists favoured the self-tour way, while the Europeans (esp. French) opted for pre-packaged.
I take it you already know the place and the people having been there some 30 years ago. The younger generations are probably now somewhat different from what you encountered in those years and they're all friendly people.
Places like Cam Ranh and Oi An/Da Nang have changed a lot between 1994 and 2000 and I think it's even more of a change now. Expect luxury Japanese-run resorts where once there was nothing but incontaminated beaches.. skyscrapers in HCMC (but the Rex still IS there!), fast food chains... and so on.
Can't help ya on the aircraft-rental issue, I am not a pilot. All I know FAA went there for some inspections to determine when infrasctructure would be ready to take US carriers but the whole thing seemed to have been put off. Don't hold me to that though.
C
Moderators? I thought posts such as luna landing's could be removed/edited, I find it of an offensive nature and of little relevance to FlyAny's questions..