10 March 2009

War Memorial gets a 'bou

| johnboy
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The ABC brings word that the War Memorial is going to take delivery of a retiring Caribou transport aircraft.

I’m pretty sure I can remember hearing these things were being retired around 1990, so it’s nice the air force has finally gotten around to doing it.

This one has apparently seen service in Vietnam, Timor and Bouganville. (Hopefully the bit of Bougainville where we were bringing peace, not the dirty-war period we’ve never fully coughed to).

They’ve been museum pieces for a very long time so it’s fitting one finally ends up in a museum.

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neanderthalsis11:59 am 10 Mar 09

I grew up in ipswich with the Bous and the F111s buzzing about overhead all the time. I’ll miss the sight of the huge tail fin and the monotonous drone of the radials when I’m back home. Amazing aircraft, could land on a tiny strip of wet grass or mud, ideal for outback strips or in PNG villages.

I remember seeing the RAAF trying to get a Landrover in one, had to remove the flared wheel arches and the wing mirrors. They managed to squeeze it in with a few mm on either side.

There’s a joke going around that says that when the RAAF leadership sat down to look at what they required from an aircraft to replace the Caribou, the only aircraft they could find that was as capable as the Caribou was the WWII era C-47!

Interesting, that suggests it was doing the black stuff.

The authoritative ADF Serials site tells us that the aircraft in question (A4-140) was in Timor in ’75 (and that this Thursday is the 45th anniversary of its delivery to the RAAF!). No more light is shed on its Bouganville operations though.

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