RAAF C-130 Flaredrop ML 24FEB13

[forever flying]

RAAF C-130J to make a spectacular appearance on Sunday, February 24 conducting a flaredrop over Port Phillip Bay. At 8pm the Hercules will fly over Port Phillip Bay towards St Kilda in a counter-clockwise direction, altitude 1,000FT.

It will complete a ‘practice pass' to ensure there are no boats or other obstructions for the flaredrop. On its second pass (approx. 8:20pm) it will dispense up to 240 flares over the course of ten seconds while banking left towards Williamstown.

Should make for an awesome sight from St Kilda beach.

[500N]

Thanks for the heads up :ok:

Will try to get down.


Do you know if this is this part of another exercise
or why they chose to do it at Sk Kilda ?

[Captain Sand Dune]

The Avalon airshow starts this week. Probably a precursor to that. Who cares about the reason anyway; it's always good to see this type of stuff:ok:

[Sunfish]

Perhaps they could do it low enough to burn out the bogans around Geelong?

[VH-XXX]

More information on vantage points here:

Hercules flare drop over Port Phillip Bay - Royal Australian Air Force (http://www.airforce.gov.au/News/Hercules_flare_drop_over_Port_Phillip_Bay/?RAAF-7O01EP6uhP8LQOkTohxzwxHu6WaulQJb)

[OZBUSDRIVER]

At least the sunset was a picture:(

[UnderneathTheRadar]

Well I waited a bit....

Talk about poor PR - advertise the might of the RAAF and then not schedule a back-up aircraft? seriously....

UTR

[500N]

Tend to agree.

Sunset was good.

[VH-XXX]

If they can't organize that successfully with plenty of notice I'd hate for the enemy to be upon us!

[Critical Reynolds No]

Was thinking the same XXX. Wouldn't want to rely on them in our time of need! I bet this wouldn't happen in the good ol' US of A.

[500N]

"Talk about poor PR - advertise the might of the RAAF and then not schedule a back-up aircraft? seriously...."


If it was at an airshow, a U/S aircraft isn't so visible but to announce
a one off event involving one aircraft to the whole of Aus where thousands
of people drive to go and see it and then cancel has me shaking my head.

[bodex666]

ALG aircraft are doing more than you realise at present. They don't just sit idle waiting for a chance to brighten the arm chair pilots day. They advertised that they were planning to do a flare drop, aircraft broke, and no replacements were avaialbe. Live with it. There's more to the RAAF than pleasing you.:mad:

[In_Transit]

Obviously it was an exercise in stealth. A stealth C130J dropping stealth flares.

[Jack Ranga]

Yeah, live with it. :ugh:

The taxpayer 'gifts' you billions of dollars a year. You expect the latest & best of everything. Unfortunately for you PR is part of your job. And that sort of garbage wouldn't happen in the States. For a start, if they couldn't deliver it they wouldn't promise it in the first place

[500N]

bodex

I know it's not about me. I would have liked to have seen
the flares but it wasn't that important to me. I've seen enough
and been in enough Hercs to satisfy my desires.

But what about the thousands of other people, kids et all who look
up to the RAAF, stood for an hour or two on the foreshore ?

As Jack said, PR, especially positive PR is part and parcel of selling
the services now, as it is with anything so to announce something
that was going to drag the general public out to see it and not deliver
is not acceptable nowadays.

The general public do not understand "technical issues", aircraft going U/S,
"subject to availability of the C-130J to conduct this task", and "may be cancelled at short notice".

An event to them that is advertised is expected to occur.

[Di_Vosh]

ALG aircraft are doing more than you realise at present. They don't just sit idle waiting for a chance to brighten the arm chair pilots day. They advertised that they were planning to do a flare drop, aircraft broke, and no replacements were avaialbe. Live with it. There's more to the RAAF than pleasing you.

ROFLMAO! Typical response from a public servant. Icing on the cake of the PR disaster, IMHO!

DIVOSH!

[Wally Mk2]

This is Australia, we are untouchable, invincible we don't need any redundancy who would want to come to this place & bomb the sh1t out of us?
I guess to the RAAF it was of no significance!

The Yanks spend zillions on PR for their armed forces, not only to attract future defense force personal but to show the rest of the world that they are a force to be reckoned with so PR is everything which is all tied up with proper-gander to some degree.
Funnily enuf( no pun intended) terrorists have mastered the art of PR.They have spread the word very effectively!

We (OZ) are the laughing stock of the world at times.:-(

Wmk2

[Sunfish]

Let's pray the Chinese don't attack on a Sunday.....or Wednesday afternoon.

[Jack Ranga]

Friday afternoon from 3pm til Monday morning around 9am. 6 weeks over chrissy/new year. Public holidays.

[Hempy]

Friday from 3? Ha! Invade any time after 1:30 Fridays mate, the only thing in the air is the Roulettes and hands at the bar..

[ozbiggles]

10 years of multiple postings to the desert to defend idiots like you Jack and allow you to make a moron of yourself because you missed a PR run
Not to mention numerous cyclone relief flights and Bali medivacs.
Why don't you mob have a quiet sit down and think about the real world job the Airforce has done. Sure it was a bit of a let down for the public but at least most of them would have the decency to acknowledge what has been achieved, unlike you bunch of sooks.

[Jack Ranga]

Facts are facts Oz, wanna call me on the m-f? Or do you just want to reproduce the notams here? I'm sure your brethren would prefer 24x7 but your incompetent governments would prefer blowing billions on botched acquisitions?

Is there anybody in Australia who doesn't acknowledge what the rank & file do?

Not talking about the servicemen you ********, I'm talking about the muppets at the top who continually promise but never deliver.

[donpizmeov]

Unfortunately Oz, you are fighting a battle you can not win. You are criticised by the GA Heroes for not not doing the test flight. And if ALG had dug up another frame you would be criticised by these same geniuses for wasting tax payers money on doing a flight that was not required. Funny how its always their tax money and not yours hey? Also interesting that they squeal like stuck pigs about Defence spending, but then cry that their arvo entertainment was ruined.

Just be happy that recruitment seem to be doing a good job.

the Don

[Jack Ranga]

Mate, I'm happy for my my tax money to be used in flare drops, I love fireworks! You won't read me complaining about it.

I would have thought you would have the intelligence to decipher that the front line troops are not being criticised here.