Great flying skills!

Older readers may remember the DHC-4 Caribou, a short-takeoff-and-landing (STOL) transport aircraft produced by De Havilland Canada.




It first flew in 1958, and was operated by many countries, including the USA (for which it rendered yeoman service during the Vietnam War). Needless to say, almost all examples have long since been retired from service. However, one fifty-year-old Caribou is still serving in Afghanistan - and being flown spectacularly well by its civilian contractor aircrew. David Axe reports:

Mountainous, landlocked, surrounded by hostile neighboring countries and lacking good roads, Afghanistan is a logistician’s nightmare. Isolated outposts such as that in Marzak are the most difficult to keep fed and fueled. There are no roads capable of supporting a heavy truck. At 10,000 feet about sea level, Marzak is too high for many helicopters. The large, powerful copters — American Chinooks, Russian-made Mi-17s — that can climb high enough are especially vulnerable to rockets and gunfire. Airdrops from high-flying C-17 or C-130 cargo planes are often imprecise. If the materials land too far away from the outpost, the resident soldiers must send out a risky combat patrol to retrieve them, a particularly difficult task without trucks and other heavy equipment.

The Army deployed to Marzak in January. Anticipating the need to supply it and other remote locations, in October the Army hired a boutique resupply company built around a single, 50-year-old De Havilland Caribou and 15 civilian pilots, staff and ground crew. The Caribou and its crews, based at Bagram airfield near Kabul, are asked to do things most military airlifters cannot: Fly low and fast to drop small loads of critical supplies with pinpoint accuracy.

The company ... began flying resupply missions in October. Since then, it has delivered more than a million pounds of cargo, according to a source close to the company. The secret to its success is the skill of the flight crews, the mechanics’ meticulous maintenance of the 1960s-vintage Caribou and upgrades to the rugged plane’s engines that give it extra oomph.

. . .

With no military planes to assume the low-altitude resupply duty, highly skilled civilians and their ancient but upgraded Caribou will likely remain a unique lifeline for isolated troops. The Caribou’s dramatic airdrops should be a regular sight in the war’s waning years.

There's more at the link. Here's a video clip of a supply drop by the Caribou.

Now that's pinpoint accuracy for you - and in a relatively ancient plane, using technology not much more advanced than that of World War II, without most of the modern navigation aids and other conveniences taken for granted by military pilots. Great flying skills!

Peter