I'm with you, BR71, in that I believe a turbine engined STOL cargo lifter like a re-engined Caribou would be a very capable and cost-effective way of continuing to fulfil our obligations in disaster relief and so on around the region, not to mention supporting exercises and operations as they arise.
Not only that, it would provide great opportunities for young aircrew to develop and maintain skills by flying a lot of hours (and interesting, challenging hours at that) rather than the kind of bare currency maintenance that is often the lot of the boggie on expensive, maintenance intensive types.
Wiley, I remember well those days of digging shell scrapes and wondering about the logic that dictated I should lower my hutchie during the day so the 'enemy' wouldn't be alerted by its presence, notwithstanding the towering Bou tails and rotor heads of our 35 SQN Iroquois parked nearby. A lot of shoulder-shrugging and 'ours is not to reason why'-ing went on!
