Thanks Wan, we got that mate 😉 Man what’s happened to you, you used to be so quick off the mark no one could beat you, not even me! Let me guess, you have a woman in your life now right?

Ahhh i remember when the AAAC had a useful fixed wing capability….

As do I mate and if you look carefully in that pic you can see the GAF Nomads in the background with the same camo! I know the AAAC was looking at the Gippslans Aerospace GA-8 Airvan to bring back their capability but I don’t know what happened to this venture.

Ja that has to be about the best pic of a RAN A-4 ive seen

Thanks mate I have that now as my wallpaper. It was seeing these and the Trackers that inspired me to join the navy when I was a kid. That pic I found while trolling the web looking for pics of the old RAN group “the Checkmates”.

I can tell you Steve, the encounter took place off the Jervis Bay bombing range just south of where I live back in the late 70’s. No it’s not an OA-4M but a standard A-4M of the US navy.

It wasn’t staged, the USN had to attack the range and the RAN had to defend and this one got bounced hard after being very sneaky and coming in very low and then trying to pop up high out of the main group. I read the account details some time ago.

Well done my friend, all the best with that!

I spoke to the former shadow defence minister some time ago about various projects and it seemed that I knerw more than he did about something the government had not told their opposition. Sadly two moths later he resigned from politics and the current Shadow defence minister never has any time to talk to any one about anything and the governments new Defence minister is a complete idiot who has no idea what is going on- as evident with the latest dibacle reguarding the loss of a soliders body during transit from Iraq to Australia!

should somebody request a print from other airforces, I´ll a profile of any aircraft requested !

OK mate Consider my comments a request 😉
I would really like to see the RAN A-4E’s in the sea camo that we had and also a profile of the RAN airshow team, the Checkmates who had a large Red and White Check board on their tail with a black Chess Knight in the middle!

Ha: mate are you sure that is a C-130? It looks more like an L-100 (civilian model) to me. Note the Windows along the side of the fuselage, regular C-130’s don’t have them.

It does help mate, still wanting to find out about the Taiwanese tubs though!

Oh and for your references, HMAS Adelaide and Canberra were paid off earlier this year to help pay for the Upgrades to the other FFG’s, thus we now only have four down here. 😉

That’s right and the Corvettes I am talking about are the Lurssen MPB-62 (Lurssen designation CM 65). These ships are highly capable having a 76mm oto, eight cell Crotale launcher and 30mm CIWS. It is capable of operating a mid weight Helo (of which I have seen an S-76 being used), but unlike the Bahrani examples does not have stowage facilities for the helo.