Porters... sorta thread drift. In 1963, I was out at Mt Isa when the army flew the first one we'd seen in. We had a look while they refuelled then he taxiied out and asked for take off clearence while sitting on the end of the piano keys, facing the wrong way. The tower came back with the estimated take off distance of a hundred feet or what ever, and the pilot said, "Acceptable ...request take off clearence"
Tower came back with something like, "at your own risk ... clear for take off".
The lad gunned her on the brakes and let them go, and was off the ground between the other end of the piano keys and the runway end.
It was the old runway and there wasn't a particularly strong south easter blowing at the time.
It certainly gave us a heap of respect for the ugly bugger.
There were three original piston ones parked on Sentani in about 1972 awaiting some engineer to certify them. We had a licenced engineer who could who came to Vanimo with us to service the threes on the overnight returns to our side of the border, as we did a heap of charters over the other side for the Indos.
Arthur was ordered to never go across the border with us as he'd be nabbed and kept to certify them.
They looked more like an aeroplane than the praying mantis the turbine makes them look like