{"id":192602,"date":"2017-10-12T00:16:14","date_gmt":"2017-10-11T14:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?p=192602"},"modified":"2020-08-12T14:32:30","modified_gmt":"2020-08-12T04:32:30","slug":"inside-look-at-raafs-latest-plane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2017\/10\/12\/inside-look-at-raafs-latest-plane\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside Look At RAAF’s Latest Plane"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Flight Lieutenant Oliver Kersnovski … returning to Kingaroy as the guest speaker at Kingaroy State High School’s speech night<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

October 12, 2017<\/strong><\/p>\n

Anyone in Kingaroy on Wednesday morning would have heard the roar as a large RAAF plane came in to land at Kingaroy Airport.<\/p>\n

On board was a crew of four personnel, including Flight Lieutenant Oliver Kersnovski who was returning to his home town for a brief visit.<\/p>\n

Flt Lieut Kersnovski will be the guest speaker at Kingaroy State High School’s annual awards night on Thursday and when his superiors learned about this, they scheduled a training flight for his C-27J Spartan airlifter to bring him back home.<\/p>\n

It also provided an opportunity for Kingaroy State High School students and members of the public to inspect the aircraft, the first of its kind to land at Kingaroy Airport.<\/p>\n

The C-27Js are still new to the RAAF, with the first being delivered in 2015 and only going into full-time service last year.<\/p>\n

They are replacements for the venerable Caribou which were retired out of the air fleet in 2009 – after 45 years’ service – and complement the well-known C-130J Hercules and C-17A Globemaster IIIs.<\/p>\n

Flt Lieut Kersnovski said the great advantage of the C-27J was that it could land on airstrips that could not handle a Hercules, something which was particularly important when dealing with humanitarian work or disaster relief.<\/strong><\/p>\n

They can undertake a wide range of missions, carrying either 34 troops, 21 stretcher patients, or 5000kg of cargo.<\/p>\n

Cargo and paratroopers can also be dropped from a height of about 1000 feet.<\/p>\n

At the moment, the\u00a0\u00a0C-27Js are based at Richmond RAAF Base, near Sydney, but they will soon be relocating to Queensland.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0C-27J flew out of Kingaroy on Wednesday afternoon, leaving Flt Lieut Kersnovski behind.<\/p>\n

After circling town, it began its journey back to base.<\/p>\n

Its next mission is in a few days … somewhere out on the Nullabor Plain.<\/p>\n