Guest Maj Millard Posted November 10, 2009 Share Posted November 10, 2009 Had the pleasure of attending the "End of an era" Caribou send-off on the weekend. It was very well attended with over a thousand at the 'hangar bash' on Sat night. Around the hangar during the day were parked a Chinook, MHR50, F-18, Tiger helicopter, Blackhawk, and of course the five or so Caribous. My only connection with them was that they were at Richmond during my RAAF days, and on a slow day you could go over and jump in, and do 30 minutes of touch and go's with the instructor and student doing the driving up front.(I did say slow day) I did also jump out of them, as I did an Army Basic Paratrooper course when the school was at Willytown. The highlight for me was climbing up into the cockpit of one Caribou with daughter in the right seat, and enjoying about 10 mins of quality 'ground' flying !. What a great old aeroplane, with dials and levers everywhere!. Additionally I had the absolute pleasure of running into three former RAAF workmates that I hadn't seen or heard of since the early 70's. One has actually done some time in a Drifter. The real good news though is that it appears there will be no less than four Caribous possibly saved from the scrap heap, with at least one probabily being kept in flying condition !. It appears that the following could be in line for one each. (Strong gossip-NOT confirmed) Canberra War Museum, Point Cook RAAF Museum, Temora Museum, HARS Wollongong and RAAF Townsville are the rumoured contenders....................................................... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
facthunter Posted November 10, 2009 Share Posted November 10, 2009 caribou survival. that is good if some survive. I could never understand the choice of engine as the P&W R-2000 was out of production when they were built, although I guess there was not much else to choose from. They must have used NOS or reco parts. The engine was a good one with which I have had a long association. The Caribou was slow, made a noise like a rail diesel loco on steroids ( because of the exhaust augmentor system) and would literally "land on a dime". I saw them at Williamtown (Newcastle) and in PNG. End of an era. nev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomo Posted November 10, 2009 Share Posted November 10, 2009 :thumb_up: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winsor68 Posted November 10, 2009 Share Posted November 10, 2009 They are an awesome beast of a machine that will hopefully be kept in good condition...I wonder if Ra-Aus could get a one off dispensation to register one Caribou...after all, the old girls have more in common with our rec aircraft than the Super Hornet... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dazza 38 Posted November 11, 2009 Share Posted November 11, 2009 i remember flying up from amberley, to nth stradbroke. with my feet hanging out the back on the ramp.(when 38 sqn was at amberley in the nineties) Flying 500 feet, up the coast looking at rainbow beach. Those were the days. I hope maj is right and they can keep flying. cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ultralights Posted November 12, 2009 Share Posted November 12, 2009 i rember the same thing with 38 Sqn at Richmond. flying over the snowfields, feet dangling in the breeze, as well as pushing pallets of sandbags out the back Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thruster87 Posted November 12, 2009 Share Posted November 12, 2009 Had the pleasure of attending the "End of an era" Caribou send-off on the weekend. It was very well attended with over a thousand at the 'hangar bash' on Sat night. Around the hangar during the day were parked a Chinook, MHR50, F-18, Tiger helicopter, Blackhawk, and of course the five or so Caribous.My only connection with them was that they were at Richmond during my RAAF days, and on a slow day you could go over and jump in, and do 30 minutes of touch and go's with the instructor and student doing the driving up front.(I did say slow day) I did also jump out of them, as I did an Army Basic Paratrooper course when the school was at Willytown. The highlight for me was climbing up into the cockpit of one Caribou with daughter in the right seat, and enjoying about 10 mins of quality 'ground' flying !. What a great old aeroplane, with dials and levers everywhere!. Additionally I had the absolute pleasure of running into three former RAAF workmates that I hadn't seen or heard of since the early 70's. One has actually done some time in a Drifter. The real good news though is that it appears there will be no less than four Caribous possibly saved from the scrap heap, with at least one probabily being kept in flying condition !. It appears that the following could be in line for one each. (Strong gossip-NOT confirmed) Canberra War Museum, Point Cook RAAF Museum, Temora Museum, HARS Wollongong and RAAF Townsville are the rumoured contenders....................................................... As I understand the RAAF spent around $250,00.00 to make the one destined for the Canberra War Museum airworthy but the museum can't house it due to its size so would need to chop the Wings, Tail and make it into a static display only.Hope they come up with a better solution.Hars is not getting its own but may get to loan one of the others and keep it airworthy. Cheers T87 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Maj Millard Posted November 12, 2009 Share Posted November 12, 2009 Damn that would be a shame. It might have been the one we went through as we just kept commenting on what good shape it was in, and somebody said it had just had a major !! (he he ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aussie Steve Posted November 28, 2009 Share Posted November 28, 2009 Hey Major... you gotta just love the noise those Pratt & Whitney,s make eh ! We were very lucky to host the Army at our airfield so they could conduct an airdrop exercise from YKAT to YBTH check out the vid we are going to host the army again soon as they do some testing with Blackhawks there something to do with altitude cert for deployment OS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
facthunter Posted November 29, 2009 Share Posted November 29, 2009 Pratt & Whitney R-2000 Noise. The noise in this instance is peculiar to the caribou installation, and is due to the exhaust augmenter cooling setup. You can hear those things when they are 20 miles away. They sound like a big Rail Locomotive. The reason the engines turn over so many times before firing up is to check for a "hydraulic" lock. 12 blades is 2 rotations of the engine and ensures that no cylinders are full of oil or fuel.. Nev Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ozzie Posted November 29, 2009 Share Posted November 29, 2009 a couple of short clips i took when at wagga some time back. great jump ship but after a few days you get a little deaf. but who complains when they give you free food, jumps and beer.!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Maj Millard Posted November 29, 2009 Share Posted November 29, 2009 Yes Aussie Steve, sucker for the sound of a round engine...was that the Medlow Bath strip ? Ozzie, thanks for the skydive.............did you shoot that 4 man sequential stuff ?........Maj Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ozzie Posted November 29, 2009 Share Posted November 29, 2009 Major, yeah it is old video 8 footage i shot at the 93 military nationals, spent a week with them. They used civies for all the technical stuff and judging ect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aussie Steve Posted November 30, 2009 Share Posted November 30, 2009 and yes Maj.. it is Medlow. YKAT (Katoomba) about 2 years ago now. I,m still flying out of there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deskpilot Posted November 30, 2009 Share Posted November 30, 2009 Get in quick and save a fuselage for yourself at least. Check out the 'Plane Crazy' thread here: The Garage Journal BEWARE, this is a large site and has some unbelievable stuff in it....awesome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest kiwilad Posted December 1, 2009 Share Posted December 1, 2009 We had 2 of your caribous turn up at our local feild a few months back,they were heading from an airshow ,further south for some cold weather training and stopped in for fuel.It was an amazing site,one plane landed on the commercial 1.5km runway,the other on the much shorter and narrower strip, nosed in to the pumps ,then had to post a cheque cause their cards didn't work.Great bunch of guys too,they ended up spending a couple of hours on the ground,showing half the town over their machines Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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