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VH-OJA lives at our Museum 🦘🇦🇺✈️

@@DebOxy oh yeah I visited there it's in Sydney next to a small airport

@@RedBeanPlayzYT yes ….90ks south of Sydney at Shellharbour Regional Airport.

@DebOxy yeah I traveled 1 hours to go there

Do it Den, truly is a beautiful place...this was our 15th visit 😁 has totally captured us

@@DebOxy Wow! 15 visits. It must be beautiful. I’ll put it on my bucket list. 😃

It's a squeeze' need to bend and wriggle lol

@@donaldchamberlain7120 called in for fuel, heading south on taxiway.

Thanks Al, just a short music video for Connie and her dedicated crew, had fun making it.

@@RotorWingsAviation Thank you 🦘🇦🇺

But it's too goddamn wide to be a knight

@@michaelfrench3396 De Havilland DHC-4 Caribou 😉😉

@@DebOxy nice! I always thought they were as wide as a c130. Just shorter.

@@Bushmaine1111 some of the VN vet servicemen are still associated with our Caribous 😁

@@DoctoreE644 another great bit of Caribou history Donald, there are so many interesting stories, some you would not believe unless told. Thank you for adding to their history. 😀

@@DebOxy For the relatively short time we were there, we certainly had our share of fun and games (right)! It was a lot of hard work, but mission accomplished. In case you are interested, look up Operation Tight Rein (or Reign). It's an interesting bit of American history in the Vietnam war. At the time, it was classified Top Secret as the development of ultra precision delivery of munitions became top priority. It was the first truly accurate positioning system (within 10 feet) to work over land, as far away as 1800 miles from the transmitting stations. Seeing that the USCG was the inventors of LORAN, it was appropriate to have us design and build this as well. It was used for search and rescue for downed pilots (Jolly Green Giants) by numerous US agencies, including 3-letter spooks; Navy; Air Force (B-52 pinpoint bombing of N & S Vietnam); and close ground support for troops by Marine F-4U Phantoms. I don't know when it was de-classified, but by 2015 I had become tired of my son asking what I did in Vietnam, so when he asked (again!), I told him to Google Operation Tight Reign. Five minutes later, he yelled0 "Holy S**t! Here's your name!! Apparently, there was little information about the details of the Operation, and a retired USCG pilot (C-123's) and USCG historian was looking for anyone that had been involved in it. I wrote him, and I ended up writing a book describing the early days. There is a link to the official USCG History website that has a condensed version, and the book itself is available on Amazon, e-book or soft cover. The name of the book is "And You Thought The Coast Guard Doesn't Go To War", ISBN: 1540883132. It's a short read, about 52 pages. Well, there you go. Everything you need to know about Operation Tight Reign or Rein. But we were not the only Coasties over there. We had 3 squadrons of 82' patrol boats interjecting sanpans and other small craft looking for illicit weapons and equipment, a number of deep water vessels for off-shore bombardments, and a number of materiel handling specialists at the ports, so the Army wouldn't end up blowing up the docks with their heavy-handed tactics (yes, it was a major issue)... the USCG had over 8,000 personnel over there, out of a total of 34,000 enlisted men and officers. A little more than ¼ of the entire force, spread out over the entire globe. And that, for the smallest and most over-worked branch of the military. It's why my short work week was 78 hours long. The longest was 102 hours, and that was before being deployed to Vietnam! I was a radio operator at the 3rd CG District in NY City. And a Boarding Officer in NY harbor. And a stand-by fill-in crewman on the 40' harbor patrol boats. All at one time. Oy-veh, as they say in NYC!! Sent from Outlook for Android

@@Aws-n7e Jelly lived for long wonderfull happy years, he passed from old age in his sleep 😢🥰

Dang man. That's so sad to hear, I hope that ur bird rest in peace.

slow progress but we are getting there. Will pass on the msg Rod 😁

Hey thanks for subscribing as well 👍👍😉

Only a short while not a long one 😉

Yep 👍

Thanks Den, as you know i love our Connie, the guys that maintain her are pretty special as well 🥰

@@DebOxy Yeh. You & all the guys do a great job 😃👍

Its a beautiful location, years gone by you used to be able to park close to the water, since the bad bush fires went through there are many widow makers now, to many for national parks to remove. Yes ive thought about taking the equinox, no good in the water as it drops off deep tho.

We are the chipmunks lol. Its a nice spot only the slow 5klm drive in was the PIA, would not attempt in bad weather and a 2WD. Location is bang in the middle of the Kangaroo River, great launch spot. Portage a bit of a pain.

It is a nice location for a day paddle, but if your out for a few days overnight, the portage of canoe/kayak AND camp gear would be a bit taxing IMHO but i am older than dirt and getting a bit over a crappy long portage now, young things be a breeze 😉😉 for the next few months, other than Bendeela its the closest to the Shoalhaven till they open the Tallowa damn road 😬

@@DebOxy oh ok so is the Tallowa damn road still closed ? bugga . might have to launch from beehive if we head that way .. hopefully the Tallowa damn road will be open by spring

@@BushKayakersCampingAustralia Still closed. It was scheduled for three months from early April but with the horrendous rain the extensive excavations has been held up, Drop Nat Parks an email for confirmation. By spring it will defiantly be open. There are three Kayak Tour Companies in the Valley that need it open ASAP.

Is it open? Hopefully not defiantly open😊

@@Kirsty-q7f yes Beehive is open, so is Tallowa Dam and also access via Bendeela camp ground

Affirmative 👍

Funny, under your reply of "affirmative ", YT marked translation. 😂 And, do y'all call them 'Roos' in AU, or is that like calling San Francisco "Frisco"? Like it's a shot to the heart to a true San Franciscan... (I be one, but you couldn't couldn't get me back there for all the money in the world. Well, maybe the USA. I am a through and through Southerner now). 🤣👍

Actually, it was "Translate to English". Which makes it even funnier! 🤣🤣

@@DoctoreE644 Australians or aussies abbreviate a lot of our words ... Kangaroos get called roos, skippy, boomers, young kangaroos are joeys. on the Qantas aircraft tails there is a red roo :-)

​@@DebOxythanks for answering my query, now I can speak with authority if the subject ever comes up! Better prepared than not... sometimes my conversations can go sideways really quickly!! 🤣😁

did you see one of the crew laying down on the cargo ramp, still need a human reversing camera 🙂

Orions can do it too you know

@@obiemichaels9675 ..and Connie and our Bous as well 🥴…then again with variable pitch prop…

@@DebOxy yeah but can’t a bou do

thought you would Justin, cant hide much from you :-)

..but still a great work horse. before visiting us 37 Squad had been supporting disaster operations in New Caledonia and New Guinea.

@@DebOxy yeah they are the hardest working unit in the RAAF

Hi Darren, we had no notification on our app at the time, this was filmed quiet a few years ago, so restrictions may be ramped up now. It was in our footage that we then spotted the LZ.

@@DebOxy Thankyou I will go for a look and hopefully a Fly..

@@Delta088 as always be air restrictions responsible and have fun.

🤔 yep you got it

Hi Deb - Convair 880? I'm not real up on Convair ID, if it's even a Convair! At the very end of the video, was that a heli flying in? It almost looks like an original Piasecki twin rotor "flying banana" from the '40's. If it is, my Dad was an engineer at Piasecki and designed some of those birds. It's really distant, so I'm probably wrong...

A3-42, an IIIO(F) interceptor, was delivered on 1st August 1966 and served with 75 Sqn at Butterworth, Malaysia until late 1969. The aircraft then went to 76 Sqn at Williamtown for a few years and then allocated to 2OCU (Fighter Operational Conversion Unit) and converted to a ground attack variant. After serving time with 77 Sqn it was retired from service in October 1987 with 4,015 hr on the airframe (initial expected design life was 1500 hrs) and used as an apprentice training aid to RAAF Base Wagga Wagga. All Mirages were retired in 1988 and replaced by the F/A-18 Hornet. HARS acquired the aircraft in March 2015

@@DebOxy yeah I thought it might have been one of the ones from Wagga considering it’s original yet good condition. They were flown to wagga in 89. Mirages were still flying at that stage in limited numbers and places like ARDU. They still had them at the 88 air show at Richmond

@@obiemichaels9675 TBH i didnt know its history, you did 👍 i cheated and copied its info from our web site for you 🥴🤪 Its paintwork was a bit poorly , its had a refurb, looks very nice now.

@@DebOxy I would have worked on her at Wagga I need to go through my pictures and see if I can work out the 4 that were there

Yep, love working there, as you know 😉 The very start of the vid, you can spot the Seafury wing on trestles, i am now painting the roundels 😁

A larger vertical stabiliser would have caused one big issue in its day ... a lot to do with undercover maintenance ;-)

All seem plausible. Hangers definitely is the frontrunner, because of its high stance and not being a tail dragger. Having to redesign and retrofit hangers all over the world would have been a bit pricey... 🤣🤯

something to do with Aircraft Hangers :-)

Thanks for watching. 🙂

Thanks Lee, a good rescue but also a sad story. Bits of the old Boston can still be seen out on the point.