Radschool Association Newsletter

Radschool Association Newsletter - Vol 5

31 May 2000

Page 9

The Caribou.

A recent issue of Air Force Today featured an article on that trusty old war-horse-The Caribou. It said that in order to keep it flying for another hundred years, the RAAF has amalgamated 35 and 38 Sqns into the one unit now stationed at Amberley. We think that 35 lost out, and the now bigger unit is called 38Sqn. Air Force Today didn’t say how the amalgamation would allow the RAAF to continue to fly the A4, perhaps they need a few on the back line for Christmas tree-ing. It seems though, that no-one can make a replacement.

Astute reader noticing the photo (above) of Win and Bill Coyer in our last issue asks whether the startled look on Bill’s face is because he’s just been sprung. We’d also like to know what Win is saying to him.........is it "Bill Coyer, I’m going to count to 5 and if you haven’t moved your right hand by the time I get to 5 you’re really going to cop it - 1, 1½, 1¾.....

Anyone who spent time at 35/38 will have fond memories of the "flying oil leak". It was customary for the Loady to always carry a cleaning rag in his flying suit, and as soon as the aircraft rolled to a stop, he’d leap out and wipe down the cowls before the pilots had a chance to see them.

Funny thing about Caribous, they seemed to always work better when they were away from home. Get them away on some exercise and they never broke down, or if they did, there was a bloke called COS who could always fix them. But back at Richmond (where they used to be) they couldn’t do two circuits of the Fitzroy Hotel without something going wrong.

The poor old sumpy certainly earned his pay with the Caribou, but he too soon learned to carry heaps of rags cleaning, and usually a file to fix the dents in the props. Radio blokes, as usual, had it dead easy. Apart from trying to fix that 180L2 HF antenna coupler thing, his only job on a pre/after flight was to wind up the loady’s "wander lead" and stow the spare head-sets. (Instrument fitters had the biggest bludge, all they had to do was wind the clocks and read the fatigue metre.)

We’ve mentioned the coupler before, so we won’t go into that again, but what a strange bit of gear it was. The only other bit of equipment that was any sort of problem was the Tacan. The one in the Caribou was about 1 cub metre in size, was made from cast iron, had 10 million valves and weighed 10 tons. It was mounted way down the bottom of the rack where it was damn near impossible to get out without a crane. Luckily, civvy Australia didn’t use Tacan, so it wasn’t used much, and therefore we would get quite a few miles out of a serviceable unit. On exercise it was always the first thing taken out and stuck in a corner, as the aircraft could then carry an extra couple of 44’s.

John Boyne (elec), at Duago Is (just off Pt Moresby) in 1968. It was necessary to take one aircraft and the whole Detachment over to Duago to swing the compass- usually on a Saturday, and as long as you’re over there.

It was a slow, noisy, uncomfortable, draughty old aeroplane to fly in, but everyone who worked on them loved them. They’ve been talking about replacing them now for years, but to date there doesn’t seem to be anything that quite matches up, and there doesn’t seem to be anything on the horizon either. There has to be a million "yarns" about trips away in the Caribou, like the time 38 went to "Pink Lilly" for an exercise, but when it got there it was raining, so instead of staying in tents like everyone else, as was originally planned, the whole crew stayed for a month in the Criterian Hotel in Rocky, and what a time that was, remember Les?? Or the trip to Leigh Creek where blue reflective tape in the shape of a caribou started to appear on every building in the town.

If you’ve got a story (or 6) about trips away in the Caribou, please sent them in-we’d love to hear them.

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