The Shit Pit

Had an office in the Waterfront Place in Brisbane and used to watch them fly beneath us as they practiced for Riverfire, F111 was more impressive as they came over the top of the bridge and down the river

Oh yes they was, when they get in unrestricted airspace above me, I was wtf the sky is on fire :laughing:

That exercise when they buzzed the Indonesian tower at 40ft off the deck and they scrambled a pair of F4’s and ran out of gas half way. ADF pilot, see ya just seeing if you are alert. Awesome and very good for Australia the F111 :+1: Long legs.

F111’s used to do low pass runs, down the coast of Fraser Island, at about 100 feet.!

You knew when they went past…!!

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Hell yea they are awesome long range tac bomber. They are still here too, might have some dirt on top of them for asbestos and USAF reasons can not on sell to another country like our upgraded legacy F18A’s :man_shrugging: Buerocoracy.

20 odd got sold to an american aggressor private company, 20 odd went to Cananda for spare parts and running ones while they had a spat with America over getting F35’s. Cananda is a part of the Commonwealth of Nations, cancelled, rejoined, now just cancelled again. Meanwhile Canada just invested 6 Billion dollars in our unique over the horizon radar technology as the US have cut them off. Good deal :+1:

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When we lived in NSW we were just up the road from GHQ Glenbrook on a spur that overlooked the Nepean Valley. The planes from Richmond air-show used to fly up the Nepean Valley and do a fly past. This was when Mirage was still operational and Canberra was being phased out. They would fly past at eye level from the park at the end of the street. Most impressive fly-by was an F11, F86 and P51 flying in formation before the F111 lit the burners and went vertical.

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Ive probably already shared this story before, but…

Years ago , i used to fly japanese tourists up to Lady elliot island, in the nomad.

F111’s were around, and must have “used me” for target finding practise…

he passed slowly, in front of me , about 3-4 miles away.

As he passed in my 12 oclock, i said on area frequency " got you in my sights now!" ( maybe not a smart move, in hindsight…)

He said " Now you dont", and did a split S and dissappeared…!!

If he had wanted to buzz me…!!
:rofl: :rofl:

He was probably afraid that if he buzzed you the tail section would fall off the nomad

The F111 we had was so good for Australia and it’s vastness, unrefueled go tap Indonesia to make sure they are awake at 40ft off the deck. There’s a book about that during a friendly exercise. Hit the throttle and boom back home to Tindal in no time. While the Indo F4’s ran out of gas half way across the water lol

VH-MSF.

The nomad they used on the “flying doctors” tv show.

Rip, the maryborough engineer, assured me “my cock will fall off, before the tail falls off…”

I said there’s a fair chance of that happening…!!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

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The terrain following radar had a built in safety feature.

Any detected radar system failure…3g pullup, to 3000’…
that would be fun…

Yea, but you could turn it off to get down and dirty.

this is the offending item…

image

Net gone fuzz.

Funny one my uncle told me who I going to see this weekend. On NSW flood relief ten year ago, C130 Hercules.

The stranded mobs of sheep and cattle and sheep on small islands.

Go in 100ft off the deck, the pilots loved it, drop the back door and yank back on the stick and go straight up dumping the bails of hay straight out the back. As he was Commander 2IC, he said yep occasionally there was a bale of hay with four legs sticking out :laughing:

Looks like MSF is a static display now…

Looks like it is near a car park somewhere…on display…

It had a Looong life…

Or its an old photo…

They don’t use those anymore do they? Last one I saw was nothing like that…

This was the last flying doctor service I had to use :rofl:

4.2Ltrs of Petrol straight six. Hospital old nurses no don’t, I said get your shit together I’m coming in hot. Cruised 160klm/hr, saved his life :wink:

Got it sorted…

The photo above is in broken hill.

Nomad put to rest , painted up as MSF ( for flying Doc display purposes), but it was another rego while it was flying…

https://www.flickr.com/photos/berniep/54444405220/

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Flying doctors use B200 king airs now…

Land on the roads, way out bush…

And Pc-12’s, B350 …etc

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Yep that’s the ones I’ve seen. Beach King Airs.

Mostly near me they do heli lift now with Bell twin Hueys

They come often to the nearest town east of me and do the trek to the Royal Adelaide Hospital for whatever they need as no doctors or medical facilities out here. No x ray machines. Just a few beds, nurses and part time Doctors from other parts, one being a good friend who bought the block next door so that’s reassuring I can just ring him direct he’ll tend to whatever is wrong with me. So I do a few jobs to help get his block improved.

That exact helicopter also gets hired by SAPOL because it has FLIR camera on it, great for picking up dope crops out in the scrub. Dope is hot, malley scrub is cold, stands out like dogs balls on a FLIR camera. No shit I went to town for a food shop, all these cop cars blocking the road, that helo flying around, 30 cops playing cricket in the middle of the dirt road. No word of a lie. Detectives with cowboy hats on. It was hilarious :laughing:

Loving all these stories! :blush:
Got plenty of my own, including the first time I almost died when hit a massive storm whilst flying between Halls Creek and Kununurra hitting an air Pocket and freefalling 5k feet in a twin engine Cessna.

Plenty of stories from my mad uncle, ex Vietnam Medevac Huey Pilot, returned to carry on flying beetlebopters including carting Lang Hancock around spotting Iron Ore deposits up North, Mustering, Feral Animal Air Culling for the Government, various Media Air cameraman jobs, Gold Prospecting and whatever other work that enabled him to keep flying wherever he could.

Mad farmer mates with various light aircraft doing mad shit and somehow survived, plenty of rides in the RAC Rescue Helicopter with many incidents involving my young fella when he was growing up.

Living in the Rescue Helicopter flight path along with the RAF training Airspace between the coast and the vast wheatbelt, and countless bushfires with hundreds of aircraft for days/weeks on end almost taking out the TV aerials with their extremely low manoeuvring :hushed:

Flight Radar is your friend, much better information than what you can ever get from sources on the ground. :+1:

Email from AKGelblaster to US customers :





Great to see the effort being made to work around Trump’s bullshit tarrifs here. :+1:

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