Thread: Plane tragics???

Originally Posted by JohnF

Read the next day in a local Paper that this all girl crew were doing practice touch and goes at the local Coolongatta airport.

That's what they seem to be doing here.

The C17 augments the existing airlift capacity I believe.

No the beeachcraft are there to keep the piolts and ground crews up to date etc, and fill a gap until replacements are found. The c130 H models are 25 year old and need relacing too, The Airbus A400m would be good but its been delayed again, and theres even reports that the UK may pull out.

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Originally Posted by Phoenix

They have ordered 4 more beechcraft to replace the caribou. That's like replacing a peacock with a sparrow!!!

The C-27 spartan would be a good replacement because it has common parts with the hercs, but they seem dead set on not ordering replacements at the moment.

Not only common parts but common cockpit with the Herc 130J is an build option, as far as I have read, which means that one pilot can fly either of these airplanes, with the same cockpit layout.

Nothing will really replace the short strip preformance of the Caribou--lands and takes of in 300 meters [or is that feet] if I am correct, while the Alenia C27 Spartan needs 600 Meters, twice the leangth of airstrip for the spartan.

The beechcraft are supose to be just a stop gap meassure, to get the maintainance crew use to a Turbo Prop instead of the piston engines, and modern avionics instead of the old fassioned ones in the Caribou.

On top of the piston engines in the Carabou, Landrover is the problem for the old Caribou . When these planes were first ordered they had to carry Landrovers. But later model landrovers were made a bit wider so would no longer fit inside the Carabou according to one Aircraft magazine article in the local Library, which is a Landrover transport Problem.

Originally Posted by JohnF

Nothing will really replace the short strip preformance of the Caribou--lands and takes of in 300 meters [or is that feet] if I am correct,

And its increciblely low stall speed.

As indicated above - there is no such thing as a Caribou replacement! There are various proposals that may partly replace them, sounds rather like the DC3 replacement problem thirty-five years ago. (It may come as a surprise but as late as the early seventies, more than 50% of the world's scheduled flight legs were operated by DC3s, all of which were at least thirty years old. There never was a direct replacement - what really made replacement necessary was that the US military used the majority of the stockpiled engine parts during the Vietnam war, making them too expensive to operate, coupled with the relatively higher cost of avgas compared to kerosene, particularly after 100LL replaced 100/130. Their functions were replaced by a variety of aircraft, but many places lost out on their air services. Most of the replacements meant much more restricted airfreight for example, and either a lot more or a lot fewer seats - small cramped aircraft or fewer flights.

Apparently Canada is looking at reopening production of the Buffalo, to replace their Caribou, with the engines replaced by turbines, probably not the ones in the Buffalo (GE) but the PW150. Viking Air reportedly hold the type certificate. (Buffalo was the relatively less successful turbine version of the Caribou)

John

John

Originally Posted by JohnF

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Not only common parts but common cockpit with the Herc 130J is an build option, as far as I have read, which means that one pilot can fly either of these airplanes, with the same cockpit layout.

Nothing will really replace the short strip preformance of the Caribou--lands and takes of in 300 meters [or is that feet] if I am correct, while the Alenia C27 Spartan needs 600 Meters, twice the leangth of airstrip for the spartan.

The beechcraft are supose to be just a stop gap meassure, to get the maintainance crew use to a Turbo Prop instead of the piston engines, and modern avionics instead of the old fassioned ones in the Caribou.

On top of the piston engines in the Carabou, Landrover is the problem for the old Caribou . When these planes were first ordered they had to carry Landrovers. But later model landrovers were made a bit wider so would no longer fit inside the Carabou according to one Aircraft magazine article in the local Library, which is a Landrover transport Problem.

Actually it's only the 6x6 land rovers that are wider, the 4x4's still fit

Is the Buffalo as versatile and nimble as the Carrabou?