Sunday 31/7 at Rockhampton...
Local spotters report that ALL the Army Tiger, Blackhawk, and Kiowa choppers have returned today from Shoalwater Bay, with the Tigers having their rotar blades removed for uplift back to Darwin this week by RAAF C-17s.
RAAF C-17 A41-206 "Stallion 30" arrived about lunch time but broke down - apparently a replacement (with spare parts) was flown in Monday.
Monday 1/8 at Rockhampton...
World Airways MD-11 N272WA arrived before dawn and will depart early tomorrow. Aircraft carries their new red, blue and white colours - very nice!
Also RAAF C-17 A41-209 flew in from Amberley as "Stallion 73". It then flew to Darwin with 2 EC665 Tiger choppers as "Stallion 30". A41-206 flew to Amberley as "Stallion 73".
One of the Tigers uplifted was A38-006 which is still damaged - there is a patch on the forward port fuselage where the idiot punched a hole in it with his axe.. Ben O in Rocky got some great shots over the last couple of days, and these are on the CQ Plane Spotting Blog -
http://cqplanespotting.blogspot.com/
Been a great time in Rocky - pity there weren't more USA stuff... until the Singaporeans in a couple of months!
Cheers
Damian