This is a rather sweet little retirement video clip

SonOfTheExiles · Post by **SonOfTheExiles** » February 24th, 2021, 10:31 pm

https://mobile.twitter.com/travisakers/status/1364760873500344328

C141 Starlifter, I think?

Cheers,
Chris

MaryinArkansas · Post by **MaryinArkansas** » February 25th, 2021, 9:19 am

That was very nice.

I know people who could use that kind of guidance backing a car out of a parking spot.

KevinS · Post by **KevinS** » February 25th, 2021, 9:37 am

MaryinArkansas wrote: ↑February 25th, 2021, 9:19 am That was very nice.

I know people who could use that kind of guidance backing a car out of a parking spot.

Gotta watch out for me. I no longer parallel park---if I ever did---and I'm liable to drive through your yard before having to back up anywhere!

k5hsj · Post by **k5hsj** » February 26th, 2021, 12:07 am

SonOfTheExiles wrote: ↑February 24th, 2021, 10:31 pm https://mobile.twitter.com/travisakers/status/1364760873500344328

C141 Starlifter, I think?

Cheers,
Chris

Nope, it's the replacement for the C-141, the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III.

ex-Sgt (USAF) Winston

SonOfTheExiles · Post by **SonOfTheExiles** » February 26th, 2021, 2:02 am

Showing my age. Haven't kept up since the end of the Cold War. it was the tail assembly that fooled me. Should've known that the USAF wouldn't still be using the old crates. Not like Australia.

The Caribou are retired, but we're still using the C51 Hercs.

The USAF used to stop in to RAAF Richmond with the Starlifters back in the day. And sometimes the C5s. It's a transport airbase northwest of Sydney. We were in Air Training Corps cadet units back in high school, and got a lot of flights in the RAAF C51s and Caribou. I miss the Caribou. You gotta love a V/STOL aircraft that can perform this manoeuvre. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSjV7DQqoBA

And if you want to realise just how far behind the curve I am ... I think our American Librivoxers will be able to appreciate this ... our weapons training as cadets was on the L1A1 SLR. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L1A1_Self-Loading_Rifle Yes, I know ... Vietnam War era stuff. Hands up everyone who had to get up and go search for the spring the first time they field-stripped the gas piston.

Being a transport base, security wasn't as eyewateringly tight as when we went up to the F111 fighter base at RAAF Amberley west of Brisbane. As a cadet NCO, I managed to get the Starlifter's loadmaster ... the rest of the crew had gone off to the Officers' Mess and left him to watch the aircraft ... I talked him into giving my guys a tour of his aircraft. (It was the general opinion of the Aussie cadets that the USAF personnel were top blokes (ie, "swell guys")). I even got him to let us sit in the pilots' seats, so long as we didn't touch anything.

You see, the "Son of the Exiles" persona was a work in progress even back in 1981.

Cheers,
Chris

k5hsj · Post by **k5hsj** » February 26th, 2021, 11:23 pm

I think that exposure to something like aircraft in your youth creates an interest that never quite leaves you no matter how old you are or where life takes you. My time as an avionics tech working on Vietnam/Cold War era fighter aircraft in Germany was 50 years ago, and yet I still seek out aerospace museums whenever I travel to revisit those days. On the down side, I'm wearing hearing aids now as a direct result of the four years I spent on flight lines around jet engines.

Sounds like you'd still like to sit in the left seat on one of those C-141s, Chris.

Winston