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| Great White North |
| GWN Flies GBP (Great Big Plane) |
| 2007-08-30 |
| KANDAHAR, Afghanistan &0151; In the pitch darkness of night, the Canadian military's new C-17 transport plane touched down softly at Kandahar Military Airport on Wednesday in southern Afghanistan. The pilots landed the giant carrier with its lights extinguished, guided solely by night-vision goggles. "We took a tactical approach with the night-vision goggles, with the airplane lights turned off, with the engines idling,'' said Maj. Jean Maisonneuve, chief check pilot at 429 Transport Squadron, 8 Wing, in Trenton, Ont. "In a way, we're sort of pioneers.'' The gigantic, 200-tonne bird of steel is expected to have an effect on Canadian troop confidence as they continue to battle with Taliban insurgents, Maisonneuve said in a short interview shortly after landing. "This plane will have a positive impact on the morale of the troops. Speaking with my colleagues, I can tell you that everyone is happy to know that we have modern tools at our disposal and a better (transport) No more Ukrainian rentals capacity than before,'' he said. |
| Posted by:Skunky Glins5285 |
| #5 All I can say is that the C-17s sure look nice when they fly over my house on their way to Peterson AFB. We get about three a month. The Canadians just jumped ahead of every other NATO country outside the US in airlift capacity. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2007-08-30 23:54 |
| #4 Let's count the errors in this story, shall we? First off it is an aircraft not a carrier. a carrier is either a class of warships or a person that has a disease. and 'bird of steel?' I doubt it; while there are some steel fittings on it, the vast majority of the aircraft is aluminum, with some composite secondary structures. to build the entire thing from steel would be, well stupid. |
| Posted by: USN, Ret. 2007-08-30 14:13 |
| #3 bird of steel Sounds like the Grumman navalized version. |
| Posted by: Thomas Woof 2007-08-30 14:07 |
| #2 On a normal approach, you cut the power to idle as you cross the runway threshold--at least, that's what they told me to do in the Flight Simulator tutorial! |
| Posted by: Mike 2007-08-30 11:34 |
| #1 With the engines idling? Is that as impressive as it sounds? Separately, I'm glad the Conservative government is spending money to support their troops. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-08-30 11:25 |